A football rivalry between the SUNY Cortland Red Dragons and the Ithaca College Bombers has been ongoing for nearly a century, dating back to when the teams first met on the gridiron in 1930. It now culminates in a high-profile game that’s known as “the biggest little game in the nation.”
Cortland and Ithaca played each other regularly since the series began but the Cortaca Jug was first awarded after a 13-7 Red Dragon victory in 1959. Tom Decker ’61, a Cortland captain, Dick Carmean, an Ithaca captain, thought of creating a trophy before that year’s game. Decker bought a ceramic milk jug for $2 at a yard sale run by Freddy Moss, a farmer in nearby Homer, N.Y. The jug was painted in Ithaca’s blue and gold and Cortland’s red and white and was passed back and forth annually between the winner until 1985, when a second jug was created. A third jug, which was created by Giotto Zampogna ’15, made its debut in 2016.
Ithaca has the lead in the Cortaca Jug series, winning 37 of the 61 contests since 1959. Ithaca leads 41-33-3 when including games prior to the Cortaca Jug. The teams have met twice in the same season only once. Cortland won a regular season game in 1988 by the score of 21-20. Ithaca won, 24-17, in a rematch in the NCAA Division III playoffs a few weeks later. The 61st edition of the Cortaca Jug game was hosted at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Nov. 16, 2019 and broke the record for all-time attendance at a DIII football game with a total of 45,161 attendees.
Sports writer John Walters gave the rivalry its nickname in a story in the Aug. 26, 1991 edition of Sports Illustrated when he wrote: “The biggest little game in the nation could turn out to be Ithaca vs. SUNY Cortland by the shores of New York state’s Cayuga Lake on Nov. 9, 1991.”
The games have often lived up to the hype, as 31 have been decided by a touchdown or less. Both colleges have dominated stretches portions of the series. Between 1969 and 1995, Ithaca didn’t lose a Cortaca Jug game at home. SUNY Cortland won seven straight games from 2010 to 2016, including a dramatic 23-20 last-second victory in 2014 that led off that evening’s SportsCenter and made ESPN’s list of the top 10 college football plays of the year.
Alumni from both schools trek back to campus to watch the game in person and thousands more attend watch parties at locations across the country.
In addition, this interactive Cortaca history page was created for the 2019 game at MetLife stadium.
*Cortland won a regular season game in 1988 by the score of 21-20. Ithaca won, 24-17, in a rematch in the NCAA Division III playoffs a few weeks later.