(September 25, 2006) ?C 67 years to the day after appearing in the first ever televised football game, the Fordham University Rams will make an appearance on national television on Saturday, September 30th. ESPNU will carry the Fordham-Holy Cross Patriot League game from Fitton Field on a tape delayed basis, airing the game at 10:00 p.m. E.S.T., with Sam Gore and Jay Walker calling the action. The Rams will look to pick up their sixth straight win against the Crusaders and keep the Iron Major Award (also known as the Ram-Crusader Cup) housed at Rose Hill. The Cup was first dedicated in 1951 to the memory of Major Frank W. Cavanaugh, who was an outstanding figure in the football coaching annals of both Fordham and Holy Cross. The series between Fordham and Holy Cross was interrupted after the 1954 season when Fordham dropped football, but was resumed in 1990 when the Rams joined the Crusaders as members of the Patriot League. The award is jointly sponsored by the Holy Cross College Clubs of New York and Long Island. The award was proposed by William P. Walsh, who graduated from Holy Cross in 1952 and from Fordham Law School in 1957. While in college, Walsh, a Fordham football fan in his childhood years, worked as a summer camp counselor under the tutelage of Ed Danowski, FCO ??34, a former Fordham football standout and then the University??s head coach. Walsh got the idea for a trophy when Danowski informed him in August 1951 that the two schools would be playing each other for the next four seasons, and that Danowski??s Rams would ??pin back the ears?? of the Crusaders. Feeling challenged, Walsh suggested the trophy be named for the ??Iron Major,?? whose last Fordham team had been captained by Danowski. He and classmate Joseph B. Breen, who also graduated from Fordham Law School, were appointed co-chairmen of the trophy committee. Holy Cross-Fordham is just one of two Patriot League football games scheduled for week five. The Crusaders are currently tied with defending Patriot League co-champion Lafayette for first place as Holy Cross opened the 2006 slate at Georgetown with a victory. It will be the season-opening Patriot League contest for Fordham, and the first-ever Patriot League game under new Head Coach Tom Masella. Holy Cross (2-2, 1-0) is coming off a 27-0 win over Marist Saturday. It was the Crusaders first shutout since blanking Dartmouth, 24-0, on Oct. 16, 2004. Fordham (1-2, 0-0) was off last week and is coming off a 37-7 setback at Columbia on Sept. 16. Gore is a veteran play-by-play announcer having called UNC-Wilmington men's basketball and ATP and WTA professional tennis tour broadcasts. Walker is a former member of the Minnesota Vikings and was an All-American while at Howard University, helping the Bison to the program's initial postseason berth in 1994. Walker joined ESPNU as a college football analyst in 2005. ESPNU was launched in March 2005. The ESPNU schedule featured 477 live events (regular-season and championships) in the network's first year. ESPNU also offers comprehensive studio programming, replays of ABC Sports, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Regional Television games, plus specials and more. In addition, the network has a wide-ranging, long-term agreement with the NCAA calling for extensive coverage of numerous NCAA Championships, including sports from each of the three collegiate seasons and has content deals for college football, basketball and other Olympic sports with the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Atlantic 10, BIG EAST, Big South, Big Ten, Mid-American Conference, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), Ohio Valley Conference (OVC), Southland, Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) and more. ESPNU has secured distribution agreements with DIRECTV (Channel 609), Echostar's DISH Network (Channel 148), Insight Communications, Mediacom, Verizon, several smaller affiliates and is close to distribution agreements with others. The 24-hour television network is the key component of the multi-media ESPNU initiative that will also deliver college sports content across ESPN's family of services, such as ESPN The Magazine, Mobile ESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN360, merchandising and more. In addition, ESPNU.com, a new online college sports hub, was launched on August 28. It is the online companion to the ESPNU college sports television network, functioning as an online home for college sports multi-media content.