Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Football Opens League Play at Fordham Saturday
10/3/2003 8:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 3, 2003
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After splitting its first four games of the season, Bucknell's schedule difficulty kicks up a notch beginning this week with 14th-ranked Fordham, the defending Patriot League champion. The Bison must shake off two heartbreaking losses in the last two weeks - first falling 21-19 at Cornell when a go-ahead field goal attempt struck the upright with 1:43 remaining, then last week dropping at 19-16 decision at Columbia on the Lions winning TD with 22 seconds remaining. Fordham, which defeated Columbia 37-30, is coming off its bye week. The Rams already have a league game under their belts, a 23-16 loss at Lehigh on Sept. 13.
* KORN HONORED: Bucknell freshman K Ryan Korn was honored as the Patriot League Rookie of the Week this week after converting all three field-goal tries and his only PAT attempt last week at Columbia. For the season Korn has made 7 of 10 field goal tries, and he leads the team and ranks eighth in the Patriot League in scoring with 28 points.
* ROAD WARRIORS: Bucknell is in the midst of a five-game road swing that finally wraps up at Penn next week. It is the team's first five-game road trip since 1982. Including the Sept. 13 bye, the Bison will actually go six weeks between home games for the first time since 1916, when they played nine straight games (including one at a neutral site) away from Lewisburg. Bucknell is 1-2 on the trip thus far and is just 1-10 in its last 11 road tilts.
* FINISH WHAT YOU START: Interestingly, Bucknell has had its two best offensive showings of the year in terms of total yardage in its two recent losses to Cornell and Columbia, yet has only produced a combined 35 points. The difference has been touchdown efficiency in the red zone. In its first two contests of the year - both victories - Bucknell managed six touchdowns and one field goal in eight red zone opportunities. In the last two weeks, though, the Bison have had two touchdowns and five field goals in nine tries inside the 20. The result: in the first two weeks the Herd averaged 328.5 yards and 30.5 points per game, while in the last two weeks they have averaged 413.5 yards but only 17.5 points per game.
* GROUND FORCES: Bucknell leads the Patriot League and ranks seventh nationally in rushing offense at 272.0 yards per game. That average would put the Bison on pace to shatter the school record for ground yards in a season. The Herd is on pace for 3,264 yards, which would better the current mark of 2,909, held by the 1951 team, which also averaged a record 323.2 rushing yards per game.
* BIG PLAY OFFENSE: If anyone doubted Tim Landis' claims that the spread option can be a big-play offense, despite its reputation as a run-oriented offense, the Bison have proved them wrong early this season. In four games Bucknell already has 21 plays of 20 yards or longer. In 11 games last season, the Bison had 32 plays of 20 yards or longer.
* PATRIOT LEAGUE OPENERS: Bucknell this week becomes the last Patriot League team to open conference play. Bucknell is 10-7 (.588) all-time in Patriot League openers and 41-49-1 (.456) in league play since joining the Patriot League in football in 1986.
* FOUR OVER 100: Bucknell had four different backs eclipse the 100-yard rushing mark in the first three games this season - RB Blamah Sarnor (147 vs. Duquesne), RB Frank Lazio (114 vs. Delaware State), RB Raphael Darrington (107 vs. Cornell) and QB Daris Wilson (107 vs. Delaware State and 106 vs. Cornell). The last time Bucknell had four different 100-yard rushers in a season was 1979, when a school-record five players achieved the feat - Ken Jenkins (four times), Hassen Abdellah (twice), Paul D'Aloia, Marshall Hall and Larry D'Amico.
* TURNOVER TRENDS: One of the biggest reasons for Bucknell's quick 2-0 start was a +7 turnover margin in those two contests. Since then, the Bison are -1 in that category and have dropped two close losses. Still, the team's +6 overall mark for the season ranks 13th in Division I-AA and is quite an improvement over last year's -17 ratio that ranked next-to-last nationally.
* GALLOPING QB'S: When junior QB Daris Wilson rushed for 107 yards against Delaware State on Sept. 6, he became the first Bison signal caller since Sam Havrilak in 1968 to run for more than 100 yards in a game. Widely regarded as the top running quarterback in school history, Havrilak ranks sixth on Bucknell's career rushing list with 1,913 yards, and he had six 100-yard games.
* HEARTBREAK HOTEL: Including a pair of losses by a combined five points over the last two weeks, 17 of Bucknell's last 24 losses have come by a touchdown or less, including 11 by a field goal or less.
* PROUD HISTORY: Bucknell's string of seven consecutive winning seasons, which had been the ninth-longest such streak in Division I-AA, came to an end in 2002. Still, with an all-time record of 534-489-51 in 117-plus seasons, Bucknell ranks 15th among all I-AA teams in total victories.
* NON-CONFERENCE SUCCESS: Since 1995, Bucknell is 25-16 (.610) versus non-league opponents, including 11-9 against Ivy League foes. Bucknell is 14-7 against non-league foes over the last three-plus seasons. The Bison tackle five non-league foes in 2003.
* NEXT UP: Bucknell continues what is arguably its most difficult stretch of the season, with three nationally ranked foes littering the schedule in a four-week span - all on the road. Next week Bucknell visits 2002 Ivy League champ Penn, which is currently ranked 15th nationally after coming from two TDs down to defeat Lehigh last week. Following a home tilt with Towson, the Bison travel to 19th-ranked Colgate, who tied Fordham atop the PL regular-season standings a year ago.
* HOME COOKING: The Bison are 31-13 (.705) in games played at Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium since 1995. Overall, Bucknell has a stellar 301-143-13 (.673) record at home. Including last week's win over Duquesne, Bucknell has not lost a non-conference home game since 1996, a 30-21 overtime loss to Pennsylvania. The Bison have won 15 straight against non-Patriot League foes at Mathewson Stadium, but they will have to wait until 2004 to face another non-league opponent in Lewisburg.
* CENTURY DUOS: For the first time since 1952, Bucknell has featured a pair of 100-yard rushers in consecutive games. Saturday at Cornell, junior RB Raphael Darrington ran for 107 yards on only nine carries, while QB Daris Wilson carried 24 times for 106 yards. The previous game against Delaware State, junior RB Frank Lazio and Wilson both topped the 100-yard rushing plateau. Prior to this season, the double-century feat had been done only twice in the last 23 years at Bucknell. It has now been done 19 times in school history, with the famed "Touchdown Twins" - Burt Talmadge and Brad Myers - accomplishing it eight times.
