The loss marked the first home defeat for Cornell since Dec. 7 — the Red had won its previous four games in Ithaca. With Penn’s victory, Cornell slipped into sixth place in the Ivy League standings, with eight games still remaining.
The Ivy rival traveled to Ithaca on Sunday to battle it out in Newman Arena at Bartels Hall. Cornell earned just 187.95 points to Penn’s whopping 192.4 points.
“We lost the game,” coach Andrew Smith said. “We felt like we beat ourselves. We didn’t work hard, we didn’t play smart, we didn’t play to our game plan. We all have a shared responsibility for that.”
This week, the Cornell football team finds itself in a position that it has not found itself in since 2013: preparing for a game coming off of a victory. As the Red heads down to the University of Pennsylvania for the season finale, head coach David Archer ’05 faces a tall task in trying to spoil the Quakers’ chances at the Ivy League title. For seniors such as running back Luke Hagy and linebacker JJ Fives, Saturday’s matchup in Philadelphia presents the last opportunity for them to play spoiler in a Cornell (1-8, 1-5 Ivy League) uniform. “It’s unbelievable,” Fives said. “It feels like I just stepped up here my summer going into my freshman year.