Following what Penn football coach Al Bagnoli deemed the "longest preseason," the Quakers finally opened their regular season on Saturday with a 37-0 victory at Lafayette.
"We [had] 37 practices without playing anybody, and the one scrimmage that we had [at Princeton on Sept. 6] lasted all of about 20 minutes [due to lightning]," Bagnoli said. "So I knew there were going to be some ups and downs."
But the Quakers were more than happy to get back out on the field and try to put the events of Sept. 11 in the back of their minds.
"It got to the point where we wouldn't even watch the news anymore past last Thursday or Friday just because it was kind of overkilling it," said Penn senior quarterback Gavin Hoffman, who lived and worked in New York City this summer. "I wanted to move on, and if I kept watching it and seeing it and seeing the stories of everybody, it would just make me more depressed.
"Once I got out there playing football, it didn't really come into my head at all."
The Lafayette defense watched a lot of film in preparation for Saturday's contest against the defending Ivy champs, but its game plan did not go quite as planned.
The Leopards main goal was to stop the run, but Penn's 233 rushing yards on the afternoon quickly negated that plan.
What went wrong?
For one, Lafayette underestimated Quakers star running back Kris Ryan.
"From watching the film, he's pretty solid on the turf," Leopards linebacker Matt Bourdon said. "But from what we saw, he wasn't the same back on grass. And we felt, once we got him on the grass and kept after him, we could do a pretty good job."
Ryan, however, showed the Leopards he could run just fine on their grass field, as he averaged 6.3 yards per carry, and enabled Hoffman to find open receivers.
"It makes my job a hell of a lot easier when we've got a big back like that they have to account for," the Penn QB said. "He's running over people, and you can tell the defense is getting worn down. They're calling their coverages and their fronts to take care of him and not me, so it makes it easier for me."
Penn's second-stringers got a little taste of action on Saturday after the ballgame was securely in the Quakers' hands. And they certainly made the most of their opportunity.
On the offensive side, freshman quarterback Jack Phillips completed one pass for a touchdown to backup tight end Brian Adams.
The Quakers defensive benchwarmers were able to preserve the shutout, forcing three Leopards turnovers in the final quarter.
The Quakers made some opening-day history in Saturday's romp.
It was the program's first opening-day shutout since a 21-0 trampling of Dartmouth on Sept. 18, 1982.
The 37 points Penn scored were also the most since they put up 55 against the Big Green on Sept. 22, 1984.
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