Ithaca at a Glance
The Football Program 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 the following: • Three NCAA Division III football championships, a total surpassed only by Augustana and Mount Union. • Seven appearances in the Division III national championship game, the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl. • Totals of 41 playoff games and 27 wins (both among the Division III leaders). • The fifth-best winning percentage in Division III (.667). • 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. team reached the NCAA playoffs for the 15th time and the 2007 and 2008 teams reached the NCAA postseason as well. • ECAC championships in 1984, 1996, 1998, and 2004. 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 Five years ago the Bombers recorded the program’s 400th victory. produced a 29-29 record before the program took off in the 1974 Ithaca’s Division III teams have been guided by coach Jim season. Butterfield, a 1997 inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame, Ithaca won 10 straight games that season, scoring over 25 points and current coach Mike Welch, a player and assistant coach under in all but one of those games. An NCAA playoff win over Slippery Butterfield. Rock put Ithaca into its first Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, where the Following Butterfield’s retirement in 1993, Welch was named team lost to Central (Iowa), 10-8.
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