Football goes for perfection

Penn tries to win 21st in a row Senior co-captain Pete Giannakoulis dismisses the Penn football team's Division I-AA record-tying 20 wins in a row with the wave of a hand and a chuckle. "Screw the streak," he says. "I am not going to be here next year." He spits on history without bitterness, just a grin. He is just not into these records for the ages. Maybe years from now he says he will be, but not now. The streak is for the guys next year to uphold. The streak is for the guys who will wake up early in the morning next spring to run, for the guys who will get back in the weight room the Monday after Thanksgiving. The streak is for the program. Giannakoulis is more concerned with going undefeated this season, with going out on top -- with winning this game. His classmates agree. "Until we hit about 17, a lot of us weren't even aware that we were in reach of a record or what the record really was," senior J.C. Lee says. "But now that we have tied the record, I would not say it is playing on our minds, but we know it is there. I do not think we will be nervous about it. The important thing is to go undefeated, to go out 19-0. The streak is just a bonus." For the seniors, practices are over now. They are dreadfully tired of practice. Practice was shorter this week, for if they do not know the plays now, they never will. When it ended, whoops of Free at last! Free at last! pierced the brisk air. Last week the emotions came out. Last week was for the fans and their parents, who were sprinkled in the crowd of 28,918. This one is for the seniors. When everything is said and done, they will get to keep two things from the Penn football program, their helmets and their memories. A loss would blemish those memories. Only Cornell blocks a second consecutive undefeated season, a feat no team in the Ivy League has ever accomplished. The Quakers, of course, were in the same position last year. In fact they were in an even more comfortable position at home, when heavy underdog Cornell jumped out to a 14-0 lead, and nearly smeared perfection. But that team was nervous about perfection. This one expects it. Playing Penn has been the Super Bowl for every team in the Ivies this season, and the Quakers have wobbled, but never fallen. If they win Saturday, the seniors will boast a record as a class, including freshman football, of 31-4. "This team does not know how to lose," Giannakoulis says. "If we play the game the way we are capable of, nobody can beat us." Especially when the Quakers are healthy. Mark DeRosa is healthy, and will start Saturday. He practiced last evening, for the first time all week, with a bandage wrapped around his wrist and thumb, but he was still rifling the ball into a gusty wind. All the banged up Quakers are healthy, including Terrance Stokes and Miles Macik. At Cornell in late November, though, the defense will likely decide this game. The stingiest defense in the nation will try to stop Cornell's Chad Levitt, who ranks seventh in the nation in rushing with 1,162 yards. Levitt is helped in the backfield by freshman Terry Smith who has scampered for 625 yards. Despite Levitt and Smith's heroics, Cornell has dropped its last three contests, spoiling a 6-0 start. What once loomed as the biggest game on the Ivy schedule is now moot as far as the Ivy title is concerned. But if the streak, perfection and the chance to stay No. 1 in the nation on defense weren't enough motivation, the Quakers' senior defenders will be playing to impress the Big Red's coaching staff. Jim Hofher and his staff are coaching the Ivy League's top seniors in Japan, and this is an opportunity to impress them. "I think every senior who starts on our defense should get to go to Japan," Lee says. But for those who do not go to Japan, it will be the last time they suit up and step on a football field. "I don't think we can appreciate it right now," senior offensive lineman Dave Broeker says. "I don't think we will really miss it until it is gone."