ITHACA, N.Y. -- With an offense locked and loaded and a young defense that returns a number of playmakers, the Cornell football team is poised to make a run at the top of the Ivy League standings. The Big Red was picked to finish third in the annual Ivy League football preseason media poll released this morning during the conference's annual media conference call.
Cornell was picked to finish behind only Harvard and Penn, and ahead of Brown, Yale and Dartmouth. Columbia and Princeton rounded out the eight-team field. The Big Red had 100 points and collected a pair of first-place votes. The defending Ivy champion Crimson recorded 132 points and 13 of the 17 first place votes, while Penn collected 111 points and two first place chouces. In all, there were 17 votes in the poll (two media representatives from each school and one national media representative).
Preseason All-Americans Jeff Mathews (QB) and Shane Savage (WR) return to an offense that flourished as the 2011 season went along. All-Ivy and All-America candidates Kurt Ondash (WR), Luke Tasker (WR), Grant Gellatly (WR), JC Tretter (LT) and Bob Bullington (C) are among the returners who were part of a unit that averaged 31.3 points and 409.0 yards per game a season ago. The offense scored 110 points in its final two games of 2011, both wins, and have scored at least 24 points in eight straight contests, a school record.
The defense includes Hugh Stewart (DL), Brett Buehler (LB), Josh Barut (S), Andrew Nelson (S) and Brian Gee (S), all of whom enter the year as All-Ivy candidates. Cornell forced 21 turnovers a season ago and stopped 11 attempted fourth-down conversions. The Big Red allowed opponents to score just 67 percent when reaching the red zone, well below its own 79 percent scoring percentage.
The Big Red opens the 2012 season when it visits Fordham on Saturday, Sept. 19 at 1 p.m.
2012 IVY LEAGUE FOOTBALL PRESEASON MEDIA POLL
PREDICTED ORDER OF FINISH
First-Place Votes in Parentheses
School Points
1. Harvard (13) 132
2. Penn (2) 111
3. Cornell (2) 100
4. Brown 84
5. Yale 66
6. Dartmouth 52
7. Columbia 36
8. Princeton 31
