National champions!
Congratulations to the SUNY Cortland football team on winning the first national championship in team history on Friday, defeating top-ranked North Central College 38-37 thanks in part to a stuffed two-point conversion attempt with 80 seconds left in the game.
National Champions sign on the SUNY Cortland campus
The well-deserved Stagg Bowl victory capped off a postseason journey for the ages. North Central College came into the title game on a 29-game winning streak, and was making its fourth consecutive national championship appearance - winning in 2019 and 2022 and losing in 2021, with the 2020 game being cancelled due to the pandemic. The last four victories by the Red Dragons this postseason came against teams that were undefeated up until that point, and it was the first time in the 20-year history of the D3football.com Top 25 poll that a team outside the top 10 at the end of the regular season (Cortland was ranked 11th) would go on to win the title.
The last team from New York state to win a D-III football championship, by the way, was Cortland's archrival, Ithaca College, all the way back in 1991. Even better, the team's head coach, Curt Fitzpatrick, is a native of Fulton, NY, roughly 12 miles away from the SUNY Oswego campus.
The win adds an impressive 26th national championship to SUNY Cortland's trophy case, and it means that the school has taken home at least one national title in each of the last six decades.
SUNY Cortland’s mascot, perched just outside Grady Field, home of the football team
Some SUNY Cortland Athletics alumni have gone on to high-profile careers, including former hockey goaltender Derek Lalonde, who is currently head coach of the Detroit Red Wings after a stint as an assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning, where he played a part in two Stanley Cup championships.
There's also Cortland native and former Red Dragons quarterback Dan Pitcher, currently the QB coach with the Cincinnati Bengals, where he played a key role in helping 2020 No. 1 draft pick Joe Burrow develop into one of the game's elite QBs. Pitcher was signed to a contract extension at the start of the year amidst interest from several other teams, and figures to be the top internal candidate should the Bengals' offensive coordinator position open up in the near future.
Voted football team MVP in 1996, his senior season at Cortland, R-Kal Truluck went on to play in the NFL for three different teams across four seasons, and also suited up for teams in the Canadian Football League and Arena Football League. Sadly, Truluck was diagnosed with ALS some time after his playing career came to an end, and he passed away in November 2019 at the age of 45.
Major League Baseball umpire C.B. Bucknor is a former Red Dragons baseball player, and although I'm not sure whether they played a team sport at Cortland, a couple of athletes from Ward Melville High School on Long Island also came through the Crown City - one was professional wrestler Mick Foley, and the other one is Kevin Knipfing, who is better known by his stage name, Kevin James.
Let's not forget another alum - our friend Alex Russo, a two-time Throwing Bagels guest (check out Episode 16 and Episode 23) who is now a content programmer with Bleacher Report Open Ice!
I really can't talk about SUNY Cortland Athletics without mentioning Fran Elia, who, simply put, is one of the best sports information directors in the country. Now in his 32nd year as Cortland's SID, Fran was inducted into the SUNY Cortland C-Club Hall of Fame in 2012, and in 2015 was recognized by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) as the Division III SID of the year. These are just two of the many accolades Fran has earned over the years, and it was great to cross paths with him many a time when I worked in Cortland radio back in the mid-aughts. (Update: Fran reminded me that C.B. Bucknor played from 1982-84 at Cortland, and is tied for third in team history with 65 career steals!)
To wrap up, congrats again to the football team on taking home its first title, and, speaking as a longtime resident of Cortland (19 years and counting!), I wish continued success for the entire athletics program and the university as a whole.
By the way, Throwing Bagels is dropping a special podcast episode in a couple of days. If you've enjoyed this blog, you might want to be on the lookout for it. Just saying…