Cornell wants to go back in the future

MOUNT VERNON - Erik Krol picked off a pass midway through the third quarter Saturday and ran unfettered down the sideline.

As the Cornell noseguard - yes, noseguard - rumbled and stumbled his way inside the 5-yard line, Simpson's Taylor Nelson caught up to him and poked the football away from behind. The quarterback eventually recovered the fumble in the end zone for a touchback.

"We made a great play there," said Cornell Coach Vince Brautigam after a 21-13 loss at Ash Park dropped his team to 0-8. "But they made one even better."

If a single moment could sum up Cornell's 14 years in the Iowa Conference, this just might have been it. The school has struggled to compete in most sports, football especially.

Thus it came as little surprise when Cornell announced Friday it is seeking to leave the IIAC and has applied to return to the Midwest Conference. That 10-school league consists of colleges from Wisconsin and Illinois, as well as Grinnell.

"It's difficult to have that hindsight discussion," Cornell Athletics Director John Cochrane said, when asked if he felt the school erred in taking the leap with Coe from the Midwest Conference to the Iowa Conference. "One of the reasons this college made the move in 1997 was to have a greater impact on Iowa students. To hopefully draw more Iowa kids. For whatever reason, probably because of the national scope of our recruiting, that hasn't come to fruition."

To prove Cochrane's point there, Cornell has just 10 Iowans on its 52-man football roster and a dozen kids from Florida. The student body as a whole has those same features.

The Gazette reported last November that Cornell had instigated talks with the other 13 members of an academic consortium called the Associated Colleges of the Midwest about a possible athletics conference. Fellow ACM schools Coe and Luther said they wished to remain in the Iowa Conference, but there were eight schools (Cornell included) that had interest.

Cochrane said the potential league fell apart over the summer, however, ultimately leading to the decision to return to the Midwest Conference. Beloit, Grinnell, Knox, Lake Forest, Lawrence, Monmouth and Ripon are Midwest Conference members and part of the ACM.

"This is an extension of the discussions that we've been having for the last year," Cochrane said. "Trying to get that group of eight together, that fell through kind at the last minute this summer. A couple of schools decided that it just wasn't going to be a significantly better situation for them.

"So as a result of that particular initiative falling apart ... we've been communicating kind of on and off with those folks (the Midwest Conference). We finally just came to the conclusion that this was in our long-term best interest."

Cochrane said his school should know for sure by spring if its application to the Midwest Conference is accepted. He sounded confident it would.

Cornell would begin competing in the league in the 2012-13 school year.

"We're trying to expand on our academic relationships we have with many of those institutions," he said. "Our increased visibility in the Chicago area in particular (was important). It's by far the area of the country where we have our largest alumni base and our most active alumni base. As we become increasingly national in scope, in terms of our recruiting base and our extension, it just makes sense to both expand those academic relationships and to expand the area in which we are visible and regularly visible."

Brautigam was asked his opinion on the potential move. He is in his first season as head football coach.

"I was hired to win football games," he said. "Whether that's in the Iowa Conference or the Midwest Conference, it doesn't matter."

Assistant football coach Steve Miller, who played for Cornell when it was in the Midwest Conference and was head coach when it made the move to the Iowa Conference in 1997, said he thinks the school's alumni will embrace switching leagues back. He has had considerable communication with alumni considering he recently retired after a long stint as a fundraiser for the school.

"We weren't exactly dominating that league when we decided to go to the Iowa Conference," Miller said. "I'm thinking of our entire 19-sport program. I think our thinking is that it's a connection to our 75-year history, more than anything.

"I think there is a feeling amongst our alums that this might be a good move. But you've to remember that 90 percent of our alumni played in the other league. Whether they were athletes or non-athletes, much of our association has been with the Midwest Conference."

Miller pointed out the school's objective is to be successful athletically, no matter what league it is in.

"To me, athletically, it doesn't make any difference," he said. "If you are going to be competitive within the top two or three positions in any sport, in either league, you'd better be pretty good. So we've got work to do, whether we're here, there or anywhere. That's the way I see it."

The Iowa Conference will likely remain an eight-school league if Cornell leaves. The conference has chosen not to comment on Cornell's Midwest Conference application other than this statement from league commissioner Chuck Yrigoyen:

"Cornell College has informed the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) that it is exploring the possibility of leaving the IIAC and moving to a different athletic conference. Other members of the Iowa Conference are committed to remaining in the conference and are awaiting Cornell's final decision to see how it will impact future scheduling within the IIAC."