Quakers open with huge game

Football battles Dartmouth Last season, the Penn football team tried to shed the label it had gained as a disappointment. It succeeded. This year, the Quakers look to establish a new label, that of contender. Will they succeed? Tomorrow will be the Quakers' first – and probably most difficult – test as Penn tries to prove that it belongs with the big boys in the Ivy League. Three-time defending Dartmouth is in town, and when the Quakers take the field tomorrow (1 p.m., Franklin Field, WXPN 88.9 FM), they will be looking to make a statement to the rest of the Ivy League. Penn is out to prove that last year's 7-3 mark under first-year head coach Al Bagnoli was indeed no fluke, and the Quakers believe they are ready to rise to the upper echelon of the Ivy League. It will be a battle of the decades at Franklin Field. Penn, with five championships in the 1980s and looking to win its first Ivy title in five years, versus Dartmouth, the team of the 1990s, looking to ride the golden arm of quarterback Jay Fiedler to the promised land again, and hopefully giving Fiedler a chance to make it in his own promised land, the National Football League. Think Jay Fiedler is getting more than his share of attention these days in Hanover, N.H.? That's because he deserves it. The 6-3, 220-pound Fiedler has the perfect body and arm to compete on a professional level. He has cruised through the Ivy League in his two previous years at the varsity level. Soon to be over 4,400 passing yards. An all-time Dartmouth record. Over 400 yards through the air last season against Yale. An all-time Dartmouth record. He passed for 2,748 yards alone last season. An all-time Dartmouth record. Get the picture? quote And to top it all off, Fiedler may actually rare back and throw more often than his 27 pass per game average of a year ago. This is due to the loss of running backs Greg Hoffmeister, Neal Martin and Russ Torres to graduation. This season, with unproven players in Chris Umscheid and Pete Oberle in the backfield, the Big Green may be forced to ride Air Fiedler if they wish to win this season. Somehow you think that Fiedler is up to the task. Up to the task is what the Penn defense must be in order to contain Dartmouth's weapon. Yes, the Quakers' defense is returning six starters from a unit that finished sixth in least yardage allowed in Division I-AA. But they only have one man, senior strong safety Jim Magallanes, returning in the area of concern when facing Fiedler – the secondary. Expect the Big Green Gun to test Penn's green cornerback crew of junior James Daniels and sophomore Kevin Allen. The Quakers' only hope is that their front seven on defense (of which five starters are returning) can put a lot of pressure on Fiedler to flush him out of the pocket. If Fiedler has one weakness, it's that he doesn't possess the fleetest of feet. If the Quakers can make him run, expect Penn's hard-hitting defensive ends – senior co-captain Dave Betten and junior Michael "Pup" Turner – to zoom in like heat-seeking missiles. Even if the Penn defense does hold Dartmouth in check, one can't expect to hold Fiedler &'Co. completely scoreless. So it will be up to the relatively young and inexperienced Penn offense to put some points on the board. Enter Jim McGeehan. The Quakers' senior signal-caller, who only needs to pass for 66 yards tomorrow to crack Penn's all-time top 10, will be the glue that keeps that offense together. With stats like that, it would seem as if McGeehan has been a starting QB for at least one full year. Well, that's right and wrong. While McGeehan does have 10 career varsity starts, they are stretched out over two seasons, as he lost previous quarterback competitions to busts Fitz McKinnon and Mike Barthlow to begin each of the last two seasons. But each year McGeehan fought his way into the starting lineup. This year marks the first-ever season-opening start for McGeehan, consequently his first career start against Dartmouth. Still, McGeehan is undaunted by the task of taking on the three-time defending champs. "When you play in a game you don't really know who you are playing," McGeehan said. "When you are at game speed it doesn't matter if you have played them four hundred million plays before or one if you are at that level and speed that you need to be at and you want to be at." It seems clear that McGeehan is up to the task. But it remains to be seen for the rest of the offense. Only one starter from last year's season-opener returns in the other 10 offense positions – senior wide receiver Chris Brassell. So the offense as a whole is as yet untested. Junior running back Terrance Stokes looks to be the focal point of the ball-control offense, but his success depends a lot on how a very inexperienced offensive line and tight end corps will block for him. It is clear that the offense will have to be as pumped up as it can get in order to score enough against the Big Green defense. But according to McGeehan, the Quakers, himself especially, should have no trouble achieving the proper level of motivation as they begin their quest for the Ivy title. "My dream season is just to win the Ivy League title," McGeehan said. "[Tomorrow] is the only time I get to play Dartmouth and they have beaten us every year since I've been here. I want to beat them good." If the Quakers do "beat them good," then they can successfully began their march of champions. If not, Penn will be back where they started from beginning last year – looking to prove it belonged with the big boys.