Notes on Penn Game

When Tre Solomon scored on the Bulldogs with 9:03 left in the 4th quarter, most of us had flashbacks of the Dartmouth game slipping away.  Rawlings and company were able to come alive and drive down the field to score, while the defense stuffed the Quakers effectively ending any hopes of another Ivy title in Philadelphia.

Penalties and turnovers crippled Yale all day.  Rawlings, Rouse and Dudek fumbled during the game and each turnover seemed to change the momentum of the contest.  Yale was penalized 9 times for 86 yards on Saturday with a questionable celebration call on Crowle leading to points and other offensive penalties stalling drives from the start.

The defensive line and linebackers played up to expectations.  DE Hunter Roman had his best performance of the season with 1.5 sacks and 2.5 tackles for loss.  DT Copache Tyler and DE Kyle Mullen were unblockable as usual.  Herubin, Matthaei, Crowle, Chism and Keeler all excelled as well.  Oluokun and Oplinger were typically the constants at linebacker, while Meder, Dean, Balter, and Burke rotated in.  Oluokun had a huge day with 10 tackles, a forced fumble, 2 sacks and 3 tackles for loss.  Alessi, Carlson and Rymiszewski looked solid in the secondary.  Dixon and Henson were torched at times by Justin Watson, but showed grit to hang in there and improve as the game went on.  Deep passes are still an area of concern as Penn dropped 1-2 touchdowns that could have swayed the outcome of the game.

There was penetration into the backfield at times and a few big hits were put on Rawlings, but fans seemed to be pleased with the performance of the offensive line overall.  Penn only notched 2 sacks all day and we were able to shut down DE Vecchio for most of the game.  Rawlings seemed to force a few balls into bad spots early on, yet didn’t throw an interception and marched the Elis downfield for victory when it mattered.  Shohfi led the wideouts with 4 catches for 68 yards.  Dudek and Salter ran for 103 yards and 77 yards respectively.  Rawlings added another 37 yards on the ground most of which came in critical situations.

Galland had another solid outing with a 35 yard field goal.  Coach Reno and Coach Rice need to be commended for that gutsy two point conversation call!