HAMILTON, N.Y. (AP) _ Tailback Randall Joseph rode the Colgate bench for the first two games of the season and part of the third. Now he's running roughshod over everybody.

On Saturday, he made Cornell his latest victim, gaining 217 yards on 29 carries and scoring three touchdowns to lead the Red Raiders to a 55-16 victory. It was Joseph's third 200-yard game of the season and boosted his season total to 845 yards on just 103 carries, an average of 8.2 yards per carry.

The loss knocked the Big Red (4-1) from the ranks of the unbeaten and kept Colgate (6-1) on target for its third straight postseason berth.

The Red Raiders, who led 21-10 at halftime, sent Cornell reeling with two touchdowns in a one-minute span midway through the third quarter _ a 12-yard pass from quarterback Ryan Vena to Chris Rossi and Joseph's 11-yard run.

``Coming into halftime, we knew that they were a team that's capable of coming back,'' said Joseph, who lost his starting job after one-too-many fumbles at the end of last season. ``We knew that we had to come out in the third quarter and keep pouring it on and ease the pressure on our defense.''

The anticipated quarterback duel never materialized between Cornell's Ricky Rahne and Vena, who played for rival high schools in Colorado but had never faced one another in a game. The Colgate senior was 12-of-15 for 175 yards and one touchdown and rushed for 40 yards and two TDs.

``He was doing a great job,'' said Vena, who has 53 TD passes in his career, one behind Steve Calabria, the all-time Colgate leader. ``I could see early that he was pressing a little bit. He was kind of nervous. The defense just did a great job getting the ball for us. That's when we capitalized.''

Colgate used its defense to foil the high-powered attack of the Big Red and win its fifth straight game. The Red Raiders, who gained 545 yards on offense, held Cornell to 198 yards on offense and sacked Rahne three times, sending him to the bench early in the second half. The Big Red managed just 24 yards rushing on 28 carries.

Rahne, a sophomore who had sparkled in the first four games of the season by hitting 94-of-169 passes for 10 touchdowns, was unable to click with any consistency. He finished 10-of-20 for 131 yards and one touchdown and was intercepted once.

``We didn't execute, and they did,'' said Rahne, who entered the game with 1,279 yards passing and managed to get untracked only once with a 4-yard touchdown pass to Justin Bush late in the first half. ``They handed it to us. If we go out and do what we're supposed to do, then maybe it's different. We didn't. We never really gave ourselves a chance.''

The Red Raiders closed with three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Vena scored on a 1-yard run, Joseph tallied on a 2-yard run, and Ed Weiss added a 4-yard scoring run.

``We were able to control the ball offensively,'' said Colgate coach Dick Biddle, his bald head gleaming in the bright sunlight after a close shave by his players. ``When we got up by a couple of touchdowns, we could pin our ears back on defense.''

The loss didn't hurt Cornell's first-place standing in the Ivy League _ the Big Red are 3-0 in their quest to win the championship outright for the first time since the league was formed in 1956. That was little solace for second-year coach Pete Mangurian.

``You don't forget getting beat that bad,'' Mangurian said. ``If you're a competitor, you don't ever forget it. I'm not a believer that you've got to lose to learn something.

``We can't change what happened, but we're going to learn from it,'' he said. ``They did what they had to do. They're in a situation where they've got to win, and they've got to win big because of their playoff hopes. We knew that coming into the game.''