After a major coaching change and a long offseason, the Red Dragons kicked off their 2025-2026 season with a home opener. Photo Credit: EDL Photography
Coming off a national championship win against North Central in 2023 and a third-round playoff appearance falling short against Springfield in 2024 Cortland football is finally back in action and expectations are high. The Red Dragons were ranked the number 10 team in the nation and kicked off their season opener at home against the number twenty-three ranked Grove City from Pennsylvania on Saturday September 6th. Grove City is coming off a three-point loss to Johns Hopkins in the 2nd round of the 2024 playoffs.
Cortland football went through a lot of changes this offseason from losing key players and most notably, their head coach, Curt Fitzpatrick. Tom Blumenauer was hired to replace Fitzpatrick as the head coach. Blumenauer was the head coach at Franklin and Marshell the previous two seasons before coming to Cortland. Another key change is the quarterback; Zac Boyes was the starting quarterback when Cortland won their national championship in 2023 and returned in 2024. Now sophomore Mike Rescigno takes the role as the starting quarterback.
Cortland started off strong with a 5-yard rushing touchdown from quarterback Mike Rescigno to take a 7-0 lead in the first quarter. Grove City scored a passing and a rushing touchdown in the second quarter; Cortland fired back with another Rescigno rush touchdown to tie the game 14-14 to end the half. The only touchdown in the third quarter was a defensive touchdown by Grove City. Grove City kicked a field goal and scored one more touchdown in the 4th quarter to end the game and secure the 31-14 win.
Mike Rescigno led the Red Dragons in passing yards (161), rushing yards (62) and rushing touchdowns (2). Sam Cotton led in receiving yards with 87 and a long of 41. Alessandro DeRosa had ten total tackles and Aden Wiser had three sacks. The team finished with 257 total yards.
Saturday was not the start the Red Dragons were hoping for, but there were some flashes, and they look to bounce back against Union College for their next game. Union also lost their season opener this past weekend to Susquehanna 33-14. Union went 3-7 last year in their regular season, missing the playoffs. Cortland and Union did not play each other last year. The game kicks off at noon on September 13th at Grady Field.
After Cortland plays Union, they will play the rest of their division, Empire 8, for the next seven games. They will go on the road for two weeks and play Hartwick and Morrisville, then return home to play Utica and Alfred followed by a road trip to St. John Fisher and Alfred State and come home to finish their empire 8 tour against Brockport. To end the regular season Cortland will go to Ithica and compete for the famous Cortica Jug on November 15th . Cortland has won the previous two Cortica games, most recently with a 28-17 win in 2024 and hopes to add their name to the jug again.