The football team opens its conference schedule with a game against Yale (1-0, 0-0 Ivy) tomorrow. The Red (1-0, 0-0 Ivy) will travel to New Haven, Conn. to face its Ivy rivals during the first weekend of in-conference Ancient Eight play.

Last season, the Red snapped a three-game losing streak against the Bulldogs. Cornell held on for a 17-14 victory in what was probably the team’s biggest win of the season. The Red prevailed in large part due to a dominant performance from its defense.

“[We] played very aggressively on defense,” said head coach Jim Knowles ’87. “We were on the attack. We blitzed a lot; we blitzed about two thirds of the time.”Pass it on: Senior quarterback Ben Ganter (13) hands the ball off to freshman linebacker Nick Mlady (33) during the Red’s 33-9 home win over Bucknell last Saturday.

Those blitzes resulted in five Cornell sacks. Thanks in part to those sacks, Cornell also managed to hold its Ivy League foe to zero net rushing yards. The feat was especially impressive considering that Mike McLeod, who had a brilliant rushing career at Yale, was in the backfield. McLeod did not manage a single rush of more than eight yards in the game. Senior safety Frank Morand said the team is focused on shutting down the run again.

“[The key on defense is] shutting down the run game,” he said. “We also have to protect our end zone, especially when they get down in the red zone.”

Cornell’s defense will have to adjust its scheme this season, as the Bulldogs have new starters at quarterback and running back.

“At running back obviously they graduated a great, great player [McLeod]. They have some young talent [at that position],” Knowles said. “[At quarterback], they have a transfer from Nebraska [Patrick Witt] who has a very strong arm and a quick release.”

Knowles indicated that the team will open the game with a defensive strategy similar to what it employed a season ago, but will be quick to adapt based on what happens on the field.

“We certainly have the blitz in our plan,” he said. “The thing with blitzing is you’ve kind of got to see how it works and see how the other team is picking it up because you can get burned by it too.”

The Red has not beaten an Ivy League team away from Ithaca since 2005. A win this weekend would end that streak.

“On the road more, we need a little more focus,” Morand said. “It’s about getting our minds right in a different setting.”

Jack Siedlecki, who led the Bulldogs to two Ivy League titles, stepped down as Yale’s football coach after 12 seasons in charge. Yale hired Tom Williams, who previously worked as a defensive assistant for the Jacksonville Jaguars, to take his place. Williams is the first African-American to hold the position at Yale.

Williams is taking over a Bulldog defense that finished atop the football championship subdivision in points allowed per game a season ago. Yale allowed a meager 58 points in seven Ivy League games last season, far and away the fewest in the conference. Yale will be hard-pressed to duplicate that performance after several of its top tacklers graduated in the spring.

The Red will look to build upon a strong opening week performance. In the team’s season opener against Bucknell, the Red stifled the Bison passing attack. Senior Ben Ganter was impressive in his first season-opening start. He completed 17 of 25 passes which helped three different Red receivers catch five passes each. He threw for a touchdown pass in relief of Nathan Ford ’09 against Yale in 2007.