Joey Giorgi ran for 165 yards and scored a touchdown as Columbia defeated Cornell 17-9 on Saturday, earning a share of the Ivy League title on the last day of the season.
Columbia (7-3, 5-2) got help from Yale, which beat Harvard (8-2, 5-2) 34-29. Dartmouth (8-2, 5-2) also joined the top of the Ivy League standings by defeating Brown 56-28, also on Saturday.
Last year, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale all finished 5-2 to share the league championship. Before 2023, the last time the Ivy League champion had two losses was in 1982, when Dartmouth, Harvard, and Penn all finished 5-2.
Before this year, the last time there was a three-way tie for the title was in 2015, when Dartmouth, Harvard, and Penn all finished 6-1.
Columbia’s share of the title was only the program’s second-ever, and its first since 1961. Cornell (4-6, 3-4), on the other hand, was trying for its first winning Ivy League season since 2005.
Caleb Sanchez’s 1-yard touchdown run capped a 10-play, 61-yard drive that lasted just over four minutes, giving Columbia a 7-0 lead with 6:30 left in the first quarter.
With just six seconds before halftime, Giorgi ran in from the 1-yard line to complete a three-play, 76-yard drive, which included a 73-yard pass from Sanchez to Ethan Hebb on the first play. The touchdown made it 14-3.
Cornell quarterback James Wang passed for 154 yards, two interceptions, and ran 20 times for 97 yards. The Big Red’s points came from kicker Alan Zhao, who made 3 of 4 field goals from distances of 45, 34, and 22 yards.
