Yale Athletics

After an excellent start to the 2024 season with a 38–31 win over Holy Cross, the Yale football team (1–0, 0–0 Ivy) will be back on the road to play the Cornell Big Red (0–1, 0–0 Ivy) this Saturday at 2 p.m. 

The last time these teams faced each other, the Big Red came out on top in a close game that ended 23–21. The Bulldogs lost at home, one of only three games lost last season. Looking at this weekend, the Bulldogs are eager to leave with a better outcome and their first Ivy League win of the season. 

The Bulldogs are coming onto the field with several new faces this season who have yet to contend with Cornell’s team, including up-and-coming quarterback Brogan McCaughey ’26 and impact rookie defensive back Breylan Thompson ’28. 

Cornell has kept their star player, Jameson Wang, as their starting quarterback this year which should give the Bulldogs a head start on preparing their defensive strategy. 

The Big Red are coming off of their first loss of the season against Colgate 24–41. The game started out with both teams making long drives upwards of seventy yards down the field, ending at 10–10. Wang started off strong making some long pass connections including a forty-yard completion to Bredan Lee and a ten-yard pass to Samuel Musungu for the team’s first touchdown of the game. 

The Big Red scored another touchdown in the second quarter with a two-yard pass from Wang to Parker Woodring, but this would mark the last time they held the lead. Colgate quickly came back and scored two touchdowns and a field goal, weakening the morale of the Big Red. At halftime, there was a 10-point difference at 17–27.

In the third quarter, Colgate scored one touchdown, with the Big Red leaving these 15 minutes scoreless. This bumped Colgate’s lead to seventeen points, at 17–34. In the fourth quarter, in an effort to recover the game, Wang completed a one-yard pass after a long drive to secure Cornell’s third and last touchdown. To end off the game, Colgate secured a final touchdown in the last two minutes of the game, making the score 41–24. 

The Bulldogs can expect to face a team filled with determination and motivation to secure their first win after struggling to maintain momentum in the second half of last week’s competition. 

With both teams motivated to come out on top, the contest on Saturday will be heated. 

Containing Wang, adjusting defense

Bulldogs quarterback McCaughey played brilliantly last week and will be locked in a duel with one of the best quarterbacks in the Ivy League this week with Cornell’s Wang.

Wang was Second Team All-Ivy last season and is an early contender to make the jump to First Team this year. The dynamic playmaker can scorch defenses through the air and on the ground as he demonstrated last week with 313 passing yards and 41 rushing yards. 

Containing Wang will take a full effort from a Yale defense that had its ups and downs last week, coming up with crucial stops in big moments but also giving up 426 yards on the day.

One emphasis for the Bulldogs needs to be generating pressure on Wang, as they struggled to do much of that last weekend. Thompson had the only sack of the game, and while it proved to be a strip sack that Yale recovered, the defense still needs to find a way to get to the quarterback. It’s also worth noting that the sack came on a blitz from the first year. 

Whether the answer is bringing more blitzes, Yale usually loves dialing up the occasional corner blitz, or generating more with their four linemen, making Wang uncomfortable in the pocket needs to be a priority. 

The secondary for the most part played well, with shutdown cornerback Sean Guyton ’25 leading the way with three pass breakups, but the team needs to work to limit the big plays they allowed against Holy Cross. 

Sticking to the Play-Action

The Bulldogs and McCaughey found success committing themselves to the run early and then running play-action off of that once Holy Cross loaded up to stop the run. Yale’s running backs should find success against a Cornell team that allowed 270 rushing yards last week, but the play action should also prove a weapon if the Big Red sell out to stop the run.

One change the Bulldogs should consider if they commit to the running game is having McCaughey keep the ball on more read-option plays. He only kept the ball on a handful of such plays but should make an effort to resist the handoff a few more times to keep the Big Red honest.

The Bottom Line

The Bulldogs showed a lot of guts last week pulling out the win against Holy Cross and will need to show up again this week. The offense doesn’t need to make too many adjustments besides the one above and they should be able to run the ball well against a Cornell defense that got gashed last weekend. 

As seen in week one, Cornell struggled majorly in the second half and the Bulldogs should use this information to emphasize keeping their foot on the gas all the way through. The Big Red’s defense proved to fizzle out as the game went on, signaling to the Bulldogs’ offense that they should prepare to take advantage of this lull in play.

On defense, if the Bulldogs can limit the damage Wang does and prevent the big pass plays that hurt them in their season opener then they should be in position to get a second win on the season.

The game will be streamed live on ESPN+ and kickoff is at 2 p.m. in Ithaca, New York. Next Saturday, the Bulldogs will face Central Connecticut in their first home game of the season.