ON THE SIDELINES: Penn's D-line played best game yet

Cozza described his team's offensive performanceCozza described his team's offensive performanceas the worst in his 32 years as Yale's head coach. It's usually hard to isolate the best performers in a game as lopsided as Penn's defeat of Yale. But Saturday's 20-3 win was clearly the work of Penn's defensive unit, especially the defensive line. In their best performance of the season, Penn's defense allowed a solitary second-quarter field goal in embarrassing Yale's offense. The total domination had Yale coach Carm Cozza, coaching his 300th collegiate game, hopping mad. "I thought Penn played extremely well defensively," Cozza said. "They made us look bad. That's about as poor an offensive showing as I think I've had in my 32 years at Yale." Exaggerated it may be, but Cozza's statement has some statistical backing. The Elis were able to come up with a scant 166 yards and 13 first downs. Part of that can be attributed to Penn's ball-control prowess, which allowed Yale only 22 minutes, 41 seconds on offense. But the credit primarily belongs to Penn's defensive linemen, who outworked and outclassed their counterparts on Yale's offensive line. While Penn was building a 10-0 lead by scoring on three of its first five possessions, the Elis went 3-and-out on their first two. Penn's defensive linemen, especially right tackle Mitch Marrow, were seemingly in the backfield with the snap. Yale, expecting a boost for the ground game from the return of first-choice tailback Jabbar Craigwell, ran for only 10 yards in the first quarter, almost wholly the result of a scramble from quarterback Kris Barber. "They weren't really coming off the ball hard at us," Penn nose guard Chris Osentowski said. "They were really finesse, position blockers. We just tried to get upfield, punch them and wreak havoc in the backfield -- and it worked early." The advantage Penn's linemen had was largely physical. There are few offensive lines in the Ivy League that can match Marrow, Osentowski & Co. for pure physical play. The only real difficulties Penn faced with the ground game was with the scrambling of Barber, who split time with more traditional pocket-passer Blake Kendall. Aside from Barber's six scampers and the occasional opening for Craigwell, the Yale running game was a black hole. That only complicated the plans for the Elis air attack. The Quakers got good pressure throughout the contest. Although the stats say Penn only registered two sacks, pressure on the passer was crucial in causing Penn's first interception, when free safety John Bishop got under a dying Barber pass early in the second quarter. The misplayed lateral that resulted in a turnover with six minutes in the game was caused by several defenders in Barber's face. Still, the top-notch performance of the defense raised one more question -- would Penn still be in the Ivy race if its defense had come together earlier?