Brown Notes

The Yale Bulldogs defeated the Brown Bears in a 56-34 shootout in New Haven last Saturday. Yale moves to 5-3 on the season with the Princeton and Harvard rivalry matchups ahead.

Jordan bounced back with a tremendous passing performance as he finished 29 of 40 for 372 yards and 6 touchdowns. Pantelis was simply unstoppable with 12 catches for 195 yards and 3 touchdowns. On the opening drive alone, Pantelis racked up 4 catches for 57 yards and a touchdown. Shipp made unbelievable catches to add another 5 catches for 89 yards and 2 touchdowns to the totals. Felton, Nenad and Belk were all key contributors with Belk scoring his first touchdown of the season on a 14 -yard reception. The rushing attack struggled early on but eventually wore down Brown’s front seven with 138 rushing yards and 4.6 yards per carry. Peterson led in rushing yards with 66 yards and broke free for a 44-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter to seal the victory. Pitsenberger didn’t see much action but still managed to account for 46 rushing yards on just 4 carries. Jordan added another 21 rushing yards and a scamper into the endzone. Jordan and Denney had a botched exchange that led to a fumble. The offensive line improved considerably from the low point of the Columbia contest. The line failed to open rushing lanes early on, although the run blocking seemed to improve on each drive as the contest wore on. Pass protection was stellar with Jordan given ample time to find open receivers downfield. Although two sacks were allowed, one sack was clearly the fault of Jordan who held onto the ball too long in search of an open wideout. The offensive staff deserves praise for putting together their top offensive gameplan of the season albeit against a secondary that was without a potential NFL draft pick.

Performance on the other side of the ball was not praiseworthy as Brown amassed 459 yards of total offense. Willcox completed 66.7% of his passes for 273 yards and a touchdown and his backup, James Murphy, threw for another 70 yards. Brown’s top two backs averaged 4.0 yards per carry or better, while the Bears’ short yardage back was able to bulldoze his way in for two short touchdowns with little resistance. Guyton had a rough contest trying to defend against a large, physical wideout from Brown who caught 10 balls for 115 yards and a touchdown. Webster and Thompson were both out of position at times in coverage although Webster’s two interceptions were crucial difference makers in the outcome. Pass interference continues to plague the secondary with back-to-back penalties at one point. Daniyan seemed to reverse his regression and played very well with 7 tackles and an interception. Kamara racked up 9 tackles and 2 quarterback hits. Gulley was back in action along the defensive line but was not utilized heavily as he continues to recover from injury. Yang did not appear in the contest and will hopefully be ready for the Tigers this week. Egodogbare was a menace for Brown with 6 solo tackles and 2 tackles for loss. McDonough had the top defensive play of the afternoon with an impressive strip-sack that was recovered by Jackson-Bass. Ayo-Durojaiye had his top performance of the season as he led the team with 12 tackles. Princeton has far more offensive talent than Brown, so the defense will need a solid week of preparation to clean up mistakes heading into the HYP rivalry stretch.

Conforti nailed all 8 of his PATs and Florio had a nice day on kickoffs. The wind that aided Florio’s kickoffs was a detriment to his punts as he finished with an average punting distance of just 29.0 yards.