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The Cornell Big Red football team will host the Columbia Lions in Ivy League play on Saturday.
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How to Watch Columbia vs Cornell
The game (1:30 p.m. ET start time) won’t be on TV anywhere, but you can watch it live on ESPN+
ESPN+ is the digital streaming service from ESPN that has exclusive coverage of most Ivy League football games this season, plus other college football and live sports, all the 30-for-30 documentaries, and additional original content (both video and written) all for $4.99 per month.
Or, if you also want the new Disney+ streaming service and Hulu, you can get all three for $12.99 per month, which works out to 25 percent savings.
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Once signed up for ESPN+, you can then watch Columbia vs Cornell live on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
Columbia vs Cornell Preview
In their final test, the Big Red will look to win a second straight game for the first time this season.
Last week, they dealt the Dartmouth Big Green their first defeat of the year, winning 20-17 on the road to improve to 2-4 in Ivy League play and 3-6 overall. Cornell running back Harold Coles carried 15 times for 111 yards and a touchdown as his team outgained Dartmouth 384-298 from scrimmage.
“There’s a saying that ‘You are what your record says,’” Cornell head coach David Archer said, according to The Cornell Daily Sun. “Not these kids — they have a next level of resiliency and togetherness, and I’m super proud of them and happy for them.”
He added: “I’m really proud of our team and our staff — we’ve had an adversity-filled year. We played in some really close games where we felt we should have won. I told them, ‘It takes a really special group of people to not let that affect you going forward.’”
Dartmouth’s loss dropped them into a tie with the Yale Bulldogs atop the conference heading into the final week. If both teams lose on Saturday and the Princeton Tigers win, then all three will share the Ivy League title.
“We talked about how they had literally everything to lose — they had just played two enormous, emotional games,” Archer said, per The Cornell Daily Sun. “I don’t think Dartmouth circled the Cornell game on their calendar … We could be the most dangerous team because we didn’t have anything to lose.”
The Lions are also 3-6 on the year and 2-4 in league play, having fallen to the Brown Bears 48-24 last week.
“You don’t want your last home game to be played like that,” Columbia head coach Al Bagnoli said, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator. “I don’t think if you talk to any of our kids — whether offensive kids or special teams kids or defensive kids — they would agree with that. It’s not a reflection on all the great things they’ve done and it’s just disappointing from a lot of levels.”
After trailing 21-0 through one quarter, the Lions cut the deficit to four in the second. But with under two minutes remaining before the midway break, they surrendered a 70-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-1.
“There were a lot of huge plays and a lot of momentum breakers,” Bagnoli said, per the Columbia Daily Spectator. “That obviously was a key one, because we were starting to get momentum, we were starting to get a little bit of energy on the sidelines and then poof.”