RPI 2026 Off-Season: Please Pardon Our Appearance As We Upgrade This Area

[Ralph Baer]

We are currently #10 in Neutral Zone's recruit class ranking. However, that includes Smith.

 

[tony/troy]

Good idea to double check before leaving. I remember 30 years or so ago (before the ubiquitous Internet) when I lived in MA and UMass-Lowell had a football team we played them on the road. I went to the campus and asked how to find the football field. I must have asked a dozen people before I found one that knew it was about 5 miles away in a neighboring town. I got there about 15 minutes into the game. Not many people there and UM-L dropped FB a few years later.

As a follower of RPI Football since childhood, you had my head spinning with this one as I had zero memory of neither UMass-Lowell ever playing football or RPI ever playing them. So it was on to dig out some old media guides and, alas, you were spot on. Kind of!!!

They in fact did play for seven consecutive years from 1980 through 1986 with RPI claiming "wins" for the first three (1980 to 1982) while claiming losses for last four (1983 to 1986). The four games played in the even numbered years were in or possibly around (as you pointed out) Lowell while the three played in the odd numbered years were in Troy. All seven were played while Lowell was either a club team (1980) or a D3 Independent (1981 to 1986). Starting in 1987 and running through 1996 Lowell was a member of three different D3 New England based conferences (which are now all as defunct as the Lowell football program) and never played RPI again. Ditto the years 1997 through 2002 when Lowell went D2. The Lowell program was terminated effective with the 2003 season.

The italics around wins in paragraph two are due to RPI claiming a win against a club team. Form Lowell's side no results can be found for 1980 besides a line on a Wikipedia page that gives no won/loss record and only is referred to as "Club team". Really, did someone from RPI at that time really feel the need that bad that they had to fudge the permanent record???

Lastly, the kind of!!! in paragraph one is due to it being a lot more than 30 years ago!!!

 

[Ralph Baer]

Today is 1- August 2026. There are 53 days until RPI's next game.


This is based upon 2 October 2026 for the start of next season.

 

[DrDemento]

In my student days, which date back to before the ubiquitous Internet and even before the ubiquitous cell phone, I was the statistician for RPI's basketball team.

One year, we were scheduled to play Drew University in Madison, NJ. Our schedule said the game was to begin at 2 PM, so we boarded the bus and left Troy that morning to be sure we could get to our destination in time for the game.

We sure did. We got there in time for a 2 PM game, only to discover that there had been a slight misunderstanding about the game time. Drew's schedule called for the game to start at 8 PM.

Drew tried to be as gracious hosts as they could. They gave us something to eat and found a lounge where we could sit around and while away the hours until game time.

But when game time finally arrived, whatever mental edge our guys might have had with them at 2 PM had completely vanished, and we lost to a very bad Drew team.

Drew repaid the visit the next season. They were accompanied by their cheerleading squad, who I guess were inspired by the thought that this might actually be a winnable game for them.

Their team was even worse than they had been the previous year. We beat them by 70 points. But they may have derived some consolation from the fact that their cheerleaders were the best-looking set of cheerleaders I ever saw at an RPI game.

This goes back a long way - normally since you and I attended RPI closely in years I can recall what you post and it is always spot on. I cannot remember the Drew basketball games but back then I did not follow or attend anything basketball related. Just RPI hockey and football. But I do think I remember the cheer leading squad for some reason (and really hope Jenny does not see this post!!!)
In the late 1980's and early 90's RPI had some very attractive cheer leaders of their own attending the hockey games at HFH wandering the stands and helping by selling memorabilia and raffle tickets. Of course I hardly noticed them (or at least pretended not to).