1994 IVY LEAGUE FOOTBALL STANDINGS: Penn begins Ivy schedule

Football meets Dartmouth Just one season ago, it was this game that determined the Ivy championship. On a rainy September 18, 1993, it was Penn that prevailed with a hard-fought 10-6 victory over Dartmouth in each team's Ivy League opener. From that point on, Dartmouth didn't lose a single league game. Unfortunately for the Big Green, neither did the Quakers. Penn went on to an unblemished 7-0 league record, while Dartmouth had to settle for second place with a 6-1 mark. "We don't need to get up for Dartmouth," Penn kicker Andy Glockner said. "They hate us. They thought last year's win was a fluke. They think we stole what was rightfully theirs." Now Dartmouth feels it has an opportunity for revenge. However, when the ball is kicked off at 1:30 p.m. at Memorial Field in Hanover (WXPN-FM 88.5), it will be a much different Big Green squad that will try to contend with the Quakers (1-0). The most obvious contrast is at the quarterback position, where heralded Jay Fiedler has been replaced by junior Ren Riley. Although Dartmouth (0-1) squandered a 16-point lead against Colgate last weekend, Riley completed 16 of 26 passes. With a chance to give the Big Green a victory, Riley slipped on a fourth-and-goal situation late in the contest. These are the kinds of mishaps that can be corrected only by experience. And after two years of competing against more experienced Dartmouth teams, the pendulum may finally have begun to swung. "This is probably the first time I would not have minded opening up with Dartmouth," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "I really minded the last two years because they had a wealth of experience. " With two starting quarterbacks who have a combined total of two collegiate starts, the ground game should see plenty of action tomorrow. For Dartmouth, the key to the game should lie in its ability to contain Penn senior running back Terrance Stokes, who scampering for 143 yards against Lafayette in the Quakers' opener. While Stokes may be the featured weapon, the Big Green is well aware of the abundance of talent on the Penn attack. "If we can't stop Stokes, we're not going to win," Dartmouth coach John Lyons said, "but we can't completely play the run, because they can beat you in the air. We have to play better than we did last week if we expect to win." Junior tailback Pete Oberle was the workhorse for the Big Green last weekend, carrying 30 times for 142 yards. Since the passing game was inconsistent against Colgate, stopping Oberle may mean stopping the offense. "They're very similar to what we are," Bagnoli said. "Instead of Stokes, they give it to Oberle 30 times. We have to stop their running game." This is the familiar task which seems to always face Penn's dominant front seven. It is this unit that is not only expected to control Oberle, but also to apply pressure on the unproven Riley. The junior quarterback has never played against a scheme as aggressive as the Quakers' 5-2 front, and this could cause some confusion. "They've reduced what they're going to do," Bagnoli said. "They've limited the package until they feel comfortable that [Riley] has made all the adjustments." Even though the Big Green passing game isn't nearly as complex as last year, Dartmouth can't rely solely on Oberle. Riley has a couple of senior wide receivers who each amassed more than 600 yards last season -- Andre Grant and David Shearer. "We have to mix it up," Lyons said. "Penn's capable of shutting down the run. They apply great pressure up front and their safeties are big and strong. We have to be able to throw the ball." This will especially be true if the Quakers have as much success shutting down the Dartmouth ground game as they did last year when the Big Green finished the afternoon with a total of 34 yards rushing. Although Dartmouth did drop its opener to the Red Raiders, the Big Green dominated the game statistically. Dartmouth had 25 first downs to Colgate's 11, had 210 rushing yards to the Red Raiders' 66, and outgained Colgate by an overall margin of more than 150 yards. Yet Dartmouth still managed to find a way to lose the game. "We know what's at stake," Glockner said. "National rankings are nice, but it's the Ivy title that we want." After the way the conference shook out last season, the Quakers know how critical that first Ivy game can be.