Football goes for the record

Penn tries for 20th straight win When the seniors on the Penn football team step onto the Franklin Field turf for the last time tomorrow, they may finally realize how far they have come. In their sophomore year, they took over a team that went 2-8 during their freshman year and promptly won 24 of the next 27 games. In addition to clinching the Ivy title, a win over Harvard would tie the all-time Division I-AA record for consecutive wins, currently held by Holy Cross with 20. "I'm excited," co-captain Mike "Pup" Turner said. "It's going to be weird -- a little bittersweet. I want to go out on a good note, hopefully with the goal posts going into the river." Back before there was any talk of goal posts going into the Schuylkill, those Penn sophomores bore a remarkable resemblance to the Harvard team that will try to prevent the Quakers from clinching the Ivy title outright. With a new coach, a new commitment to excellence, and the resurrection of an old winning tradition, Harvard looks like a force to be reckoned with in the Ivy future. Led by a young quarterback and a freshman running back, Harvard has harnessed the power of youth to put together the Ivy League's most prolific offense. With only one returning starter, coach Tim Murphy has assembled a powerful, balanced offense from a group which had almost no previous varsity experience. The balance is based on redshirt junior quarterback Vin Ferrara and freshman running back Eion Hu. Ferrara has been ECAC Division I-AA and Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week twice this year. He leads the Ivy League in total offense at 193.6 yards per game, and is 117 of 200 passing for 1,427 yards. Hu is on the fast track to becoming Ivy Rookie of the Year. He has won five of the eight Rookie of the Week awards. He is second in rushing in the Ivy League with 914 yards, and 14th nationally. He has done all that despite running behind a very young offensive line. "Eion is like a lot of our kids," Murphy said. "We had only one returning starter on offense. Most of our offense has no varsity experience and Eion is like the rest of our offense. He puts in a lot of effort, and he runs as hard as anyone in this league. He is a tailback you can build your offense around for the next three years." Both Hu and Harvard's versatility have made Penn's top-ranked defense nationally somewhat wary of the league's top offense. "Obviously we need to concentrate on shutting down Hu and their quarterback," Turner said. "Against Dartmouth, he [completed] 16 in a row. They'll mix it up on you. Princeton is a running team and when Dartmouth had Fiedler, you had to stop the pass, but they're a very well-balanced attack and that's probably the reason for their success." Whatever success the Crimson has had on offense, it has not been a similar story on defense. Harvard has been giving up more than 23 points per game because of, once again, the Crimson's lack of experience. "We've moved forward on defense," Murphy said. "On one hand, we've gotten better, outside of the yardage we've given up. We've gotten much better in the red zone. "Our biggest problem is a lack of depth. We've played four different freshmen defensive tackles this year. When you've got a team that runs the no-huddle like Penn does, and runs the ball as well as Penn does, it's really going to be a test for a team as young as ours." For the Quakers, it's the same old story. It's the nation's top-ranked defense. It's the offensive onslaught led by all-American wide receiver Miles Macik and senior running back Terrance Stokes. It's a team striving to maintain the level of excellence which has brought this team into the same area of the Penn football pantheon that is occupied by such legendary names as Munger, Heisman and Bednarik. Two games from immortality. Two games from becoming the all-time consecutive Division I-AA win leader. Two games from perfection, once again. Two games from becoming the first team in Ivy League history to put together back-to-back undefeated seasons. And the last home game for one of the most successful senior classes in Pennsylvania football history. It seems easy to forget the game has not even been played yet. "We haven't won anything," defensive coordinator Mike Toop said. "With a senior-oriented team, hopefully they're going to be mature enough to realize that. We definitely have brought that to their attention. We'll find out Saturday if they were listening or not."