GAME ANALYSIS: Defense keeps Big Green offense under control

The Penn defense held Dartmouth to just four yards of total offense in the first helf. The defense was supposed to be one of the weak links for the '98 edition of the Penn football team -- right? After all, the Quakers lost third round NFL draft pick Mitch Marrow and Second Team All-Ivy honoree Doug Zinser from the defensive line. The secondary lost First Team All-Ivy safety John Bishop and honorable mention All-Ivy cornerback Larrin Robertson. Four of the Quakers' top six tacklers from '97 were gone to graduation. The offense was solid and could put up points, but it was clear that the team's defense would have its hands full this season -- right? Wrong. Buoyed by four sacks and eight tackles for a loss, Penn's defensive side of the ball played one of its better games in recent Quakers' memory on Saturday. Consider this: Dartmouth -- runner-up in the Ivies last season -- did not get a first down until there was 4:13 left in the third quarter. It took the Big Green 10 possessions and nearly 41 minutes to perform such a mundane task. "Defensively, they're a tough, physical team, and they caused us problems," Dartmouth coach John Lyons said. In a game where field position is almost everything, the Quakers defense did their part in giving the offense a short field to work with. At halftime, the Big Green had gained just four yards of total offense and, more importantly, had been unable to cross midfield. By the game's end, the Dartmouth total was not much better, as the Big Green "racked up" 105 yards of total offense -- 31 coming in the last 50 seconds of the game. The Quakers secondary, replete with two new cornerbacks, was considered by many to be this year's main question mark. But the back four, led by Penn co-captain senior free safety Joe Piela, held Dartmouth sophomore quarterback Mike Coffey to 85 yards on 10-for-22 passing. "I have no worries about either of them [new faces Hasani White and Joey Alofaitulli] at corner, as much as I do in Darren Macdonald at linebacker," Piela said, stressing the confidence the team has in both its secondary and in returning senior First Team All-Ivy Macdonald. The defensive front held even more impressively, allowing the option-oriented Big Green a whopping 0.72 yards per carry on the day. "We don't like drop-back passing on second and long dictating what we have to do, and their defense knows it. There were times when they were making twists and we didn't pick up some of them," Dartmouth quarterback Mike Coffey said. "For lack of a better word, I have to say we were pathetic in the first half." Junior lineman Adrian Puzio and Macdonald each recorded first-half sacks for the Quakers, while senior end Justin Gallagher and senior lineman Jason Maehr each made big plays in the final 10 minutes of the game. Maehr's sack came in a key third-down situation, and forced a Big Green punt with less than four minutes remaining. "We were trying to mix up [our five and six man fronts]," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "We felt that we had some experienced kids up there that we can show them a lot of different looks. We played five or six good people? from that perspective, we were just trying to keep them off balance." Quakers junior linebacker James Hisgen had an outstanding day, recording eight tackles, including three of the Quakers' eight tackles for a loss. Hisgen recovered a key third-quarter fumble in Penn territory as well. In total, Dartmouth had possession of the ball 15 times on the day. Of the 12 times they started in their own end, they crossed midfield just once. Even the two touchdowns that the Big Green were able to come up with were each more a byproduct of chance and an indifferent Quakers kicking game than outright defensive failures. One Big Green score was on a 26-yard lob into the end zone, while the other resulted from a 13-yard Jake Plummer-like scramble by Coffey. "The first time [Dartmouth scored], we drove them back 15 yards and they just made one pass," Piela said. "We came off the field, nobody put their head down. On defense, everybody was yelling and screaming, and everybody was keeping their head up and making sure that it didn't happen again. "And then when it did happen again, we still were up, and that was obvious at the end of the game, when we stepped up and made plays in the last couple of minutes." The Big Green were stopped three-and-out three times in the fourth quarter, and were never a threat to enter field goal range in the last frame. Another tribute to the Penn defense was the fact that as a unit they did not commit a penalty on the day. The constant pressure of the Quakers' front five caused two offsides and two delay of game penalties on the Big Green offense on the day -- the last of which prompted Coffey to shout obscenities at his teammates and coaching staff in the closing minutes. "I think as a defense, we played pretty well," Bagnoli said. "When the smoke cleared, we were able to make some third-down plays, able to create turnovers, able to make some stops when we had to -- I thought those kids played really well."