Football defense tops in I-AA

Penn football's defense has allowed the least yards in Division I-AA. Penn's team defense is back on top of Division I-AA. After giving up 34 points to Richmond, the Quakers' "D" stifled the Bucknell Bison, almost winning the game by itself. The Quakers are giving up an average of 210 yards per game, putting them ahead of No. 2 South Florida (211.8 yards) and No. 3 South Carolina State (214 yards). "As far as we're concerned, we try to shut the team out," free safety and captain Joe Piela said. "If they can't score, they can't win." But Penn's offense has not always been holding up its end of the bargain. According to Piela, however, the defense is not concerned with the struggling offense. "If our offense can score three points, that should be enough for us to win," Piela said. "If we give the offense good field position, they are going to put things together and score some points." "It's nice and all that, but it's game three," Penn defensive coordinator Mike Toop said. "If you spend too much looking at where you're ranked as far as statistics go, the next week you're down at the bottom of the barrel." · Piela is one of the main reasons for the defensive success. Last week against Bucknell, in addition to picking off a pass late in the game, he returned a punt for a touchdown en route to earning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week honors. "He's had a very solid year so far." Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "We're starting to get a tremendous amount of confidence in his ability to return kicks and to defend." In addition to his standout defensive play, Piela is averaging 15.59 yards on punt returns, putting him 13th in Division I-AA. But he downplayed his accomplishments. "I got lucky on the punt return. I ran untouched," Piela said. "And I happened to be in the right place at the right time? to be able to make the interception." "He's doing the things that you expect him to do," Toop said. "The thing about seniors is that when [they] start marking off the games, the sense of urgency is always greater for those guys. It means a little bit more because they won't have another shot." · Saturday figures to be an interesting day for the Piela family. Fordham also has a safety named Piela who wears No. 19. Joe's brother Jon starts at strong safety for the Rams. "There's a little rivalry going on," Penn's Piela said. "There's been some talk going back and forth." Joe said his family would not play favorites in the battle for Piela bragging rights. "We'll be both on different sides of the ball, so I'm sure [my family] will be rooting for him when he's on defense and rooting for me when I'm on defense," he said. Here's hoping for a 0-0 tie. But the Piela brothers may get to spend a bit of quality time together Saturday on special teams if Jon plays on kick coverage. "We might be able to run into each other on punts, so I'll have my eye out for him when I'm back deep," Joe said. · The Quakers are spending time in practice this week trying to work the kinks out of its offense, especially "the red-zone attack and short yardage" situations, according to Bagnoli. "We're working on spreading the ball around to a lot of different receivers down the field [and] mixing up the run and the pass a little bit better than we had," quarterback Matt Rader said. "I think Fordham will give us a lot of opportunities to do that." · Offensive tackle Jason Lebron will play in his first game this season at Fordham. He will split time with current starters Aaron Atkins and Matt Bane. "It's his first week back off injury, so I don't know how much he's going to be playing," Rader said. Also back from injury is defensive tackle Ed Galan, who sat out the Bucknell game last week. · On the defensive side of the ball, the Quakers are gearing up for a big Fordham offensive line. The Rams line averages 6'3'' and 276 lbs., while the Penn defensive line averages 6'1'' and 244 lbs. But that does not worry Toop, although his defense had trouble with Richmond's average 284-lb. linemen. "You don't do anything to gear up for size. You can't worry about size because there's nothing you can do to combat it."

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