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Cornell piled up 600 yards to stun No. 6 Lehigh 48-38, ending its 23-game regular-season win streak and hurting its FCS playoff seeding hopes.
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For 23 straight regular-season games, nobody could beat Lehigh. Cornell did it Saturday, and the Big Red did it by piling up 600 yards in a 48-38 win at Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca, New York, on Oct. 17. The loss ended Lehigh's 23-game regular-season winning streak, as FloFootball's Ajay Shah noted.
Lehigh came in at No. 6 in the Redshirt Sports FCS Top 25. The Mountain Hawks' last regular-season loss had come 38-23 at Yale on Oct. 19, 2024, according to Lehigh's 2024 schedule. It was Cornell's first win over a top-five team since 1939, according to The Associated Press.
Cornell came out swinging, scoring on its first two drives. Jordan Triplett ran 17 yards for a touchdown, and Garrett Bass-Sulpizio hit Ja'Von Broussard for a 37-yard score. Lehigh's only first-quarter points came when linebacker Luke Denny returned a fumble 100 yards for a touchdown.
The Big Red led 31-17 at halftime, and from there it became a game of answers. Lehigh pulled within seven points three times in the second half, the last on Derek Morgan's 41-yard touchdown pass to Bryce Werner. Each time, Cornell had a response. Triplett's 3-yard run made it 45-31, and Alan Zhao's 32-yard field goal with 1:50 left put it away. Morgan was intercepted on Lehigh's final drive.
Bass-Sulpizio put up career highs with 366 passing yards and 103 rushing yards. He completed 22 of 34 passes with two touchdowns and no interceptions, and he ran for a score. Brendan Lee caught five passes for 92 yards and a touchdown and ran for another, while Triplett finished with 75 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
Cornell outgained Lehigh 600-387, converted eight of 12 third downs and held the ball for 36:47. The 600 yards were Cornell's most in a game since it gained 640 in a 38-28 win at Brown on Oct. 28, 1995, according to Cornell Athletics.
Lehigh's offense did its part. Morgan threw for 204 yards and three touchdowns, and Luke Yoder ran for 142 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries.
Here's the good news for Lehigh: the loss doesn't touch its league record. Lehigh is still 4-0 in the Patriot League and 6-1 overall, and the Patriot League champion gets the league's automatic bid to the FCS playoffs.
Richmond and Colgate sit one game back at 3-1, and Lehigh still has to play both. It hosts Colgate on Nov. 7 and visits Richmond on Nov. 14. Colgate also lost Saturday, falling 27-17 at home to Georgetown. Head-to-head results are the league's first tiebreaker, so those two November games could decide the bid.
The bigger hit may be to Lehigh's seeding hopes. The Mountain Hawks fell from No. 6 to No. 15 in this week's Redshirt Sports FCS Top 25. To our knowledge, none of the selection committee members use the Redshirt Sports poll, but it can still be a good indicator of how Lehigh's resume is viewed. Their best path back toward a home playoff game is to win the league outright.
Lehigh visits Villanova on Saturday, Oct. 24, at 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+. Villanova is 3-4 and 2-2 in the Patriot League. Cornell, now 3-2 and 1-1 in the Ivy League, plays at Brown the same day at noon ET on ESPN+.
For Lehigh, one Saturday in Ithaca doesn't change what's still in front of it. For Cornell, it's a win the program will remember for a long time.
