The Ithaca College football team returns to action Saturday following an off week, and the Bombers, the 24th-ranked team in the country, will receive a stiff test when No. 16 Hobart comes to Butterfield Stadium for a 1 p.m. showdown in Ithaca's home opener.

Ithaca (1-0) is coming off a season-opening 38-23 road win at Union College, the program's 18^th consecutive season-opening win, and 35^th win in its last 39 openers.

Hobart (2-0) has recorded back-to-back wins to start the season, knocking off Dickinson (Pa.) 29-7 and Endicott (Mass.) 28-17.

The game is a rematch of last year's first-round NCAA contest, which Hobart won 22-15 on Nov. 22, 2014 to advance into the second round. Ithaca had the lead for all but the final 12 seconds of the playoff game, but the Statesmen prevailed when Patrick Conlan ran for a one-yard touchdown late in regulation.

Hobart is winless in 13 career trips to Butterfield Stadium.

"We had some opportunities last year against Hobart and you have to take advantage of those opportunities to beat them," said Mike Welch, who has compiled a 161-67 record (.706 winning percentage) in his 22 years as Ithaca's head coach.

"They are a very good football team with a great defense. We need to create and capitalize on those opportunities in this game if we want to win. It's always a big challenge taking on Hobart."

In its season-opening win, junior quarterback Wolfgang Shafer directed an efficient Ithaca offense that rolled up 381 yards of offense while converting 66.7 percent of its third downs (10 of 15).

Shafer, the son of Syracuse University head football coach Scott Shafer, completed 75.6 percent of his passes (25 of 33) for 265 yards and two touchdowns. Welch said Shafer displayed poise in the pocket and precision passing the ball while making big plays and limiting mistakes.

"I thought the offense had some consistency at putting drives together, so I liked that," Welch said. "We need to run the ball a little bit better but overall offensively we had consistency and we got good contributions from our kicking game. We were good at converting third downs and made some good plays in big situations. Also our return game set us up with great field position. Overall, for first game of the year I thought it was a pretty sound effort."

Senior wide receiver Josh Oliver caught eight passes for 80 yards and threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to junior wide receiver Brian Balsamo on a trick play to spark the offense to a 14-7 halftime lead.

Senior defensive back Malik Morris recorded 11 tackles and returned a 37-yard interception for a touchdown to seal the win for Ithaca, while sophomore linebacker Dan Loizos made 10 tackles as the Bombers won their sixth straight vs. Union.

With Union trying to force overtime late in the fourth quarter, Morris, one of four Ithaca student-athletes to land on the American Football Network's Annual UCA College Football D-III Pre-Season All-American watch list, stepped in front of a pass and returned it 37 yards for his first pick-six to finish off the win.

"Defensively, although we've played better in terms of the score, we saw some good things out of our guys," Welch said. "Malik Morris had a really outstanding game and our defensive line played really well. We want to continue our consistency. We'd like to get our running game going a little bit more, and we'd like to get off the field a little bit more with our defense on third down."

Welch knows it will take a balanced, mistake-free effort to knock off the Statesmen, who have won their last 32 regular season games and haven't lost a regular-season contest since a 29-28 setback to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Nov. 5, 2011.

Hobart is ranked in the top 25 in several statistical categories in the latest NCAA Division III report. Among them: the Statesmen are fourth in the nation in third down percentage defense (.138), eighth in team passing efficiency defense (59.63), and 10th in total defense (169.0 yds/game).

Shane Sweeney, a transfer quarterback from the University at Albany, has completed 35 of 55 passes for 378 yards with two touchdowns and an interception in two games.

Conner Hartigan (109 rushing yards), Bradley Burns (94) and Tynard Barfield (77) have combined for 280 rushing yards in Hobart's first two games. The Statesmen boast a pair of 100-yard wideouts in Jack Pfohl (110 receiving yards) and Brandon Shed (103).