All-Americans 1979 National Championship 1988 National Championship 1991 National Championship

One of the school’s most successful athletic programs, the Ithaca football team also ranks among the top programs in the nation. The many highlights of Bomber football include:

 

*          Three NCAA Division III football championships, a total surpassed only by Augustana and Mount Union.

 

   *       A record seven appearances in the Division III national championship game, the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl.

 

   *       Totals of 39 playoff games and 27 wins (both among the Division III leaders).

 

   *       The fourth-best winning percentage in Division III (.643).

 

   *       Eight Lambert/Meadowlands Cups, presented to the top small-college program in the East each season; and nine Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) team of the year trophies.

 

   *       ECAC championships in 1984, 1996, 1998 and 2004.

 

   The Bombers recorded the program’s 500th victory in 2004, posting a win over Utica to reach the milestone mark.

 

   Ithaca’s Division III teams have been guided by coach Jim Butterfield, a 1997 inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame, and current coach Mike Welch, a player and assistant coach under Butterfield.

 

   Following Butterfield’s retirement in 1993, Welch was named Ithaca’s ninth head football coach. His first team finished the regular season with six consecutive wins to earn the program’s 12th NCAA playoff berth. The Bombers posted playoff wins over Buffalo State (in overtime) and Plymouth State and nearly reached the Stagg Bowl, losing, 23-19, in the semifinals to Washington & Jefferson. Ithaca slipped to 5-4 in 1995 but was back in the postseason hunt again in 1996. The Bombers capped a 7-3 season with the ECAC Northeast championship, thanks to a 27-21 win at Worcester State. In 1997, a seven-game winning streak put Ithaca in the playoff race, but back-to-back losses by a total of eight points in the season’s last two games knocked the Bombers out of postseason contention. 

  The 1998 team won eight of 10 regular-season games, then routed Hartwick, 40-6, in the ECAC North championship. A year later Ithaca made its 17th postseason appearance, reaching the ECAC Northwest championship. In 2001 the Bombers made a run in the NCAA tournament for the second time under Welch. After a 9-1 regular season, the 2001 team traveled to Montclair State and Rensselaer to post two playoff wins. The Bombers then fell to Rowan to end the successful season. The 2003 season saw road wins over Brockport and Montclair State in the NCAA playoffs before a snowy loss at Rensselaer in the national quarterfinals. A year later Ithaca closed out the regular season with five straight wins then beat Massachusetts-Dartmouth in an ECAC postseason game.

   Last season, all-American lineman Joe Scalice and record-setting quarterback Josh Felicetti, the Empire 8 Player of the Year, led the Bombers to their fourth straight Empire 8 title and a trip to the NCAA playoffs.

 

   When Butterfield arrived at Ithaca in 1967 for his first collegiate head coaching post, Ithaca’s schedule included top teams like Lehigh, West Chester, and C.W. Post. His first seven seasons produced a 29-29 record, before the program took off in the 1974 season.

 

   Ithaca won 10 straight games that season, scoring over 25 points in all but one of those games. An NCAA playoff win over Slippery Rock put Ithaca into its first Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, where the team lost to Central (Iowa), 10-8. Ithaca won the Division III team offense title that year, averaging 487.9 yards per game, a total topped by only four teams since. The Bombers were back in the national championship game a year later, posting 10 straight wins (five by shutout). In one of those shutouts, a 61-0 win over Springfield, Ithaca’s defense set Division III records for fewest total yards allowed (minus 50) and fewest rushing yards allowed (minus 94). In the playoffs, the Bombers topped Fort Valley and Widener before losing to Wittenberg,

28-0. All-Americans Jerry Boyes, a quarterback, and running back Dave Remick were mainstays on those first two Stagg Bowl teams.

 

   Wittenberg again eliminated the Bombers from the postseason in 1978, a season that saw Ithaca lead Division III in rushing offense (averaging 320.1 yards per game). A year later the Bombers upset the three top seeds on the way to the school’s first national championship in any sport. Linebacker John Laper, the school’s career leader in tackles, and running back Bob Ferrigno, who tops the program in postseason rushing yards, were two of the top players on that team. The Bombers were back in the Stagg Bowl in 1980 and 1985, and reached the semifinals in 1986.

 

   The 1988 season brought another national championship. The Bombers were 9-1 in the regular season, posted an overtime win over defending champion Wagner in a first-round playoff game, avenged their regular-season loss to Cortland in the second round and defeated Ferrum in the semifinals to earn a sixth Stagg Bowl visit. Ithaca’s 39-24 win over Central gave the program its second national championship. The Bombers set four playoff records: most points (159), first downs (91), net yards rushing (1,377) and total offense (1,719 yards).

Two freshmen who played in the 1988 championship game—quarterback Todd Wilkowski and kicker Matt Sullivan—were back in the Stagg Bowl again in 1991. Wilkowski set a number of school passing records as a senior. After a week-four loss to Springfield put postseason hopes in jeopardy, Wilkowski (who was inducted into Ithaca’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002) engineered two scoring drives in the final minutes the following week against American International en route to a 23-20 win. Ithaca won its remaining four regular-season games and then beat Glassboro State, Union and Susquehanna in the playoffs to set up the Stagg Bowl return.

In the national championship game, Wilkowski passed for 262 yards and two touchdown passes and Jeff Wittman rushed for three touchdowns as Ithaca defeated Dayton, 34-20. Ithaca’s 94 first downs and 1,867 yards in total offense were NCAA playoff records.

 

   Ithaca made its 11th appearance in the NCAA postseason in 1992, but had its three-year streak

broken in Butterfield’s last year.

 

   Butterfield was named Kodak Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association in 1988 and 1991, and earned District I honors from the same organization seven times: in 1974, from 1978-80, and again from 1984-86.

 

   Following Ithaca’s national championship seasons in 1979, 1988 and 1991, Butterfield was presented

the Stan Lomax-Irving T. Marsh Award as Eastern coach of the year by the New York Football Writers Association. The 1988 season also brought him Division III coach of the year recognition from Chevrolet.

National recognition came to his players as well, with 85 of his Bombers winning 149 all-American spots.

 

   Already a member of the Ithaca College Athletic Hall of Fame, Butterfield added to his long list of accomplishments in 1997 when he became the first member of the Bomber football program to earn induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.

 

   Ithaca’s football program began in 1930, under coach Leonard Schreck. At that time, Ithaca played a five-game schedule that included freshman teams from St. Lawrence and Colgate, and varsity teams from Mansfield, Hartwick and Cortland.

 

   Coach Bucky Freeman took over in 1931 and led the Bombers to their first winning season, a 3-2 mark. His 13-year tenure featured nine winning seasons. Freeman coached back Ken Patrick, who still ranks among the program’s rushing leaders with 1,500 yards.

 

Football was discontinued from 1943-45. Between 1946 and 1957, Pete Hatch, Joseph Hamilton and Art Orloske served as Ithaca’s head coaches.

 

   The hiring of Dick Lyon in 1958 produced a resurgence in the program. On the heels of a 2-5 season, Lyon’s first team posted a 6-1 record in 1958. That team, captained by lineman John Fasolino, a member of the Ithaca Athletic Hall of Fame, held the opposition to eight points or fewer in six of seven games.

 

   In 1959 an incentive was added to the already competitive Ithaca-Cortland rivalry. Team captains Dick Carmean from Ithaca and Tom Decker of Cortland joined to donate a traveling trophy, named the Cortaca Jug, to be presented to the winning team each year. Today the matchup is one of the most prominent in Division III. Five of the last six Cortaca Jug games held in Ithaca have attracted crowds of 10,000 or more.

 

   Ithaca posted three straight 6-2 records from 1962-64. Among the standouts of the period were 1962 all-American running back Bill O’Dell and Sam Curko, a guard, linebacker and kicker who earned all-American honors in 1963. In 1965 the Bombers finished 8-0 for the program’s first undefeated season. Quarterback James Harris passed for 1,269 yards and nine touchdowns that year. Lyon’s teams posted a winning record every season. In 1967 he joined the football staff at Army, opening the door for the arrival of Butterfield.