ON THE SIDELINES: Penn fells that burning sensation

ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Quakers defensive secondary was simply en fuego. Not because of a stellar performance at Cornell, but because Larrin Robertson, James Finn and John Bishop and Bruce Rossignol were continually getting burned by Big Red receivers Eric Krawczyk and Steve Busch. Interestingly enough, it appeared that the backs had improved immensely in the past three weeks, but upon further review, they have shown almost no improvement at all. And the worst thing about the secondary situation is that all but Bishop will return next year, bringing their slow learning curve with them. To be fair, inexperience was rampant in the Penn backfield at the beginning of the season. With the graduation of Nick Morris, Dana Lyons and Kevin Allen, Penn lost the nucleus of its strongest position of last season. Ironically, the only returning member of the 1995 backfield was Robertson -- the defender who got beaten the most on Saturday. In addition, Finn and Rossignol were forced to make the switch from offense to defense to fill the positions this season. But after a full season of play, there has been a complete lack of growth seen this season -- the backs have simply been floundering all season. And yesterday proved just that. The Big Red scored three touchdowns, and all three of them were on passing plays of 11, 17 and 39 yards. In fact, Cornell came out prepared to test Penn's achilles heel, throwing two passes for 74 yards on the opening drive, which resulted in a touchdown. Overall, the Big Red averaged about 15 yards in each of their 17 receptions. Coming into Saturday's matchup, Penn was allowing just over 11 yards per grab. In the past three games against Yale, Harvard and Princeton, the Red and Blue went on a three game winning streak where the Quakers defense held the three teams to 368 total passing yards. That is not as good as it sounds, however. In those three games, opposing quarterbacks completed 29 passes for an average of 12.7 yards each -- more than the season average. But what the statistics don't tell you is just how wide open opposing receivers have been all season. From the time Eric Morton caught a wide-open eight-yard pass with 19 seconds left to beat Penn in Dartmouth, almost every big pass downfield has featured a wide-open receiver -- with Penn defenders covering yards away. "[Robertson] was playing four yards off me," Big Red receiver Steve Busch said. "I was running a slant. I knew from the beginning I was going to get [the ball], because if you're playing four yards off me, there's really no way you're going to get inside of me to make a play." For that matter, you can't cover anyone from four yards away -- especially with a halfway decent quarterback. But the Penn secondary has yet to learn that. Even coach Al Bagnoli has been perplexed all season by the problem of the secondary. The initial plague was that the Quakers were somehow allowing first downs on third and very long. But that plague was a microcosm of the entire pass defense. After a few weeks, Bagnoli acknowledged the longevity of this problem. "I don't have any answers," Bagnoli said after the Brown game. "But it's pretty obvious that they're struggling, because they continue to give up way, way too much yardage. I don't have any more answers because I don't have any more kids."