Ithaca College football’s 2022 season in review

Mike Toerper had a tremendous season in his first year as head coach of the Ithaca College football team. Toerper led the Bombers to a 12-1 record, a quarterfinal appearance in the NCAA Tournament, and their first Liberty League title outright. Photo by Rich Barnes.

As the college football season wraps up on Monday with the College Football Playoff National Championship, looking back at the Division III landscape goes largely unnoticed… except in Tompkins County.

The Ithaca College football team had a campaign to remember. The Bombers went 12-1 and made it all the way to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time since 2003. Along the way, they won the Liberty League for the first time outright after sharing the title with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) for three of the last four seasons. The Bombers also achieved their first undefeated regular season since 1986.

All of these outstanding feats came under first-year head coach Mike Toerper, who is a familiar face to the program. After serving as the Bombers’ defensive coordinator from 2017 to 2019, Toerper became the safeties coach at Division I College of the Holy Cross. In his return to South Hill, Toerper excelled in his new role, bringing a multi-faceted identity to the Bombers that made them near unstoppable.

“[We’re] together, collective energy, fast, physical, tough, nasty,” Toerper said. “You see it on Saturdays. It’s reflective of the way these guys just really enjoy being around each other and buy into a team of guys that know what their one-eleventh is, whether they’re playing 100 snaps or zero snaps. [They’re] buying into that and doing it to the best of their ability on a day-to-day basis.”

That brand of football was evident from the very first play of the season. On Sept. 9 against Bridgewater State, senior Anthony D’Addetta returned the opening kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown, getting the Bombers off to the best possible start.

“It was a really exciting play for me,” D’Addetta said. “We’re going into the game [with] not a lot of expectation… just trying to play really hard. I had 10 guys around me working their butts off trying to help me get in the end zone. I wish everybody could just go back and watch that play and watch the other 10 guys in the field throwing bodies around, laying out for blocks and just working really hard to try to get me in the end zone.”

That play would be a sign of things to come for the Bombers. They reached 12 wins for only the fourth time in program history and dominated on both sides of the ball. Offensively, Ithaca averaged 38.3 points per game in the regular season and ranked in the top 10 nationally in fourth down conversions, completion percentage, and turnovers lost. A massive part of their success has been the offensive line, led by two-time Second Team All-American Jake Villanueva. Their hard work did not go unnoticed by Toerper.

“Those are the unsung guys,” Toerper said. “I think that group just really works so well as a unit. Hats off to [offensive coordinator] Sean Reeder and [assistant coach] Ryan Shippa to get those guys working as a collective group. I think that’s so important because we had some injuries, and we were able to move the pieces around to continue the success up there. We haven’t really skipped a beat when one guy has gone down, so I’m really proud of them.”

The Bombers were just as powerful defensively. During the regular season, they allowed only 9.9 points per game and ranked in the top 10 nationally in passing efficiency defense, scoring defense, and defensive touchdowns.

One of the biggest highlights of the season was the 63rd edition of the Cortaca Jug Game against SUNY Cortland on Nov. 12. Not only was this game special because both the Bombers and Red Dragons were undefeated at that point, it was also hosted at Yankee Stadium for the first time. With a crowd of over 40,000 watching on, Ithaca prevailed 34-17 to reclaim the Cortaca Jug and close out a perfect regular season.

“Our strategy was to lean into the moment as hard as we possibly could in pregame warm-ups,” Toerper said. “When we took the field and before kickoff, [we] just talked about embracing that feeling that will be going through your body and through your mind, and then recognizing [that] the team that is able to click in and focus on the task at hand the fastest would be the one that starts the fastest. Our ability to do that and execute what we talked about all week really led to a successful game plan.”

The Bombers’ season wasn’t done there. They got to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament and used their home-field advantage to their full advantage. Ithaca first dispatched UMass Dartmouth 63-20 in the opening round before beating Springfield 31-20. While the Bombers fell to the eventual champions North Central in the quarterfinals, no one on

South Hill will forget the Bombers’ triumphant 2022 season and the remarkable job Toerper did leading the program.

“For me personally, Coach Terp recruited me here and he was one of the main reasons why I came here,” said junior running back Jake Williams. “When he left I was like, ‘Man, do I really still want to go here?’ But I think I made the right choice [with] him coming back. We all love him. He’s a guy we love to play for.”