On a windy day in New York City, Columbia downed football 17-9 to win a share of the Ivy League title for the first time since 1961 and just the second time in Lion history. With the loss, Cornell’s (4-6, 3-4 Ivy League) streak of finishing Ivy play with a .500 record or below continued for an 18th straight season.
Cornell received the opening kick, then traded unsuccessful drives with the Lions. When the Red received the ball for a second time, the offense came alive. A 10-play, 60-yard drive got the Red down to the Columbia 13 yard line, but sophomore kicker Alan Zhao missed the first field goal attempt of the game amid gusting winds to keep the matchup scoreless. It was Zhao’s first field goal miss of the season.
After another stop by the Cornell defense, the Red’s offense returned to the field with great field position at its own 44 yard line. However, on the fourth play of the drive, senior quarterback Jameson Wang’s pass was intercepted by Columbia. The play marked Wang’s 10th interception of the season.
The first quarter came to an end after two straight Columbia first downs, but the drive stalled and Cornell got the football back deep in its own territory. After the Red earned two first downs of its own, Cornell freshman punter Caden Lesiewicz’s punt into the wind went just 27 yards, setting up the Lions at the Columbia 36. The Lions proceeded to put an end to the field position battle, driving 64 yards on 10 plays to go up 7-0.
Cornell got the ball back looking to score, and on the first play of the drive, sophomore tight end Blaine Zoller was left wide open over the middle. Zoller — who was in the game due to a midweek practice injury to sophomore tight end Ryder Kurtz — could not haul in the pass from Wang, and the opportunity went amiss.
On fourth-and-six, it seemed like the drive would end in the third Cornell punt of the half. Instead, head coach Dan Swanstrom dialed up a fake punt that led to a 40 yard scamper for senior defensive lineman Hunter Sloan. The trickery made it three straight games with a successful fake punt for the Red. Cornell got the ball down to the Lion 17, and Alan Zhao made a difficult field goal facing the wind to cut the deficit to four.
With under two minutes to go, Columbia drove down the field looking to extend its lead before the half, but a dropped snap on third-and-one doomed any chance of a Lion score.
At the halftime break, the Red trailed despite having four more minutes of possession and three drives of seven or more plays to the Lions’ one. Cornell’s three first-half points were the fewest the Red had scored in a half since week three against the University at Albany.
The Lions started the second half with the football and immediately drove down the field. On the 10th play of the drive, Lion quarterback A.J. Simpkins sprinted 13 yards to the endzone for what seemed like Columbia’s second touchdown of the game. Instead, holding was called on a Lion offensive lineman, and the drive ended in a missed field goal.
With the score remaining 7-3, Wang and the Red offense returned to the field for the Ivy Offensive Player of the Year candidate’s final half as a Cornellian. Cornell receiving yards and receptions leader sophomore wide receiver Samuel Musungu, who had been relatively quiet up until this point, caught a 19-yard pass to convert on third-and-16. Then, on fourth-and-five from the Columbia 24 yard line, Musungu was targeted by Wang on a pass that was called incomplete despite protests from Musungu and the Cornell sideline.
On the next play, Columbia’s Caleb Sanchez burned the Cornell secondary for a 73-yard catch and run to put the Lions at the Cornell three yard line. Two plays later, the score was 14-3.
The change in fortune was stunning. In just four plays, Cornell had gone from close to taking the lead to being down two scores.
With Columbia in the lead, all eyes turned to Cambridge, Massachusetts to see if Yale could pull off the upset over first place Harvard. A loss for the Crimson would allow Columbia and/or Dartmouth to clinch a share of the Ivy League title with a win. The Bulldogs built a 24-7 lead, but The Game was still in the early stages of the third quarter.
Back in New York City, Cornell took over on offense to start the fourth quarter. Thanks to a 25-yard Wang run on the second play of the drive, Cornell sent out Zhao to attempt his third field goal of the game from the Columbia 28. The 45 yard kick fought through the wind to split the uprights, bringing the Red back within one score.
Then, Columbia made its first major mistake of the afternoon. Down to its third center of the game due to injury, the Lions fumbled a snap, which was recovered by senior linebacker Luke Banbury. Two eleven-yard plays later, Cornell had the football at Columbia’s 14 yard line.
The Red’s red zone offense, which had scored touchdowns on 30 of 45 chances and ranked first in the Ivy League, fed off the momentum and seemed moments from scoring again. Instead, Wang was picked off for a second time while trying to reach Musungu in the endzone.
Cornell’s defense, which entered the game allowing the second-most yards in the Ivy League, could not hold back the Columbia offense. The Lions took the fourth quarter clock from 8:11 all the way down to under two minutes, before kicking a field goal to go up 17-6.
Cornell’s offense could muster only a field goal in response, and the Red dropped the Empire State Cup for a fourth straight year, 17-9. Cornell was outgained 405 to 378, while out-possessing the Lions by about a minute.
In his last game wearing the Carnelian and White, Wang threw for 154 yards on 14 of 25 attempts while picking up 110 yards on the ground. However, Wang’s two interceptions proved costly in a low-scoring game with just three total turnovers. Fittingly, star linebacker Banbury ended his Cornell career with a fumble recovery and 10 tackles.
In Cambridge, Harvard rallied late, at one point scoring 16 points in 32 seconds, but dropped its biggest game of the season to the Bulldogs. With that result, Harvard, Columbia and Dartmouth all claimed shares of the Ivy League title with even records of 5-2.
A year after the firing of David Archer ’10, Swanstrom enters his first full offseason as coach of the Red with his work cut out for him. Alongside Wang and Banbury, Cornell will graduate 26 other seniors. The strength of Swanstrom’s first recruiting class will determine whether the Red can win the Ivy League for the first time since 1990.