Football is one win away from Ivy crown

If the Penn football team beats Harvard tomorrow, the Ivy title returns home for the first time since '94. It all comes down to this. Although the Penn football team will not clinch an Ivy League title outright unless it wins both of its final two games, for much of the Penn community, the Ivy championship game takes place tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. If Penn (6-2, 4-1 Ivy League) beats defending league champ Harvard (4-4, 3-2) on Franklin Field, the stadium will erupt in cheers and fans will throw enough toast to feed a small nation. But most importantly, the Quakers will have clinched a tie for the Ivy League championship, their first since 1994. "That is why you coach. To put yourself in a situation where you have a chance to win a title," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "One of the reasons kids come to play here is because we have had a good track record the last five or seven years of playing in some significantly big games." What could have been a significantly big game last year went down as one of the most embarrassing losses in recent Quakers football history. Penn traveled to Cambridge, Mass., to take on undefeated Ivy leader Harvard. With a win, the Red and Blue would have moved into a first place tie. Instead, the Crimson stomped Penn on its way to a league title, winning 33-0. The story will be a bit different this season. Harvard is not the dominant team of a year ago. The Crimson started the '98 season with four straight losses, but has compiled three wins and comes into Saturday's game only one game back of the Quakers in the Ivy race. "For some reason, and I don't have the ultimate reason, [Harvard] hasn't clicked on all cylinders," Bagnoli said. "We just hope that it's one more week before they start clicking." One player who has not been running on the same cylinders as last season is Crimson junior running back Chris Menick. Menick set a Harvard record when he led the league with 1,267 rushing yards last year. This season, Menick has only rushed for 692 yards, 464 yards short of conference leader Jim Finn. Last Saturday, Menick's disappointing season took another bad turn. In the third quarter of Harvard's loss to Brown, Menick went down with an ankle injury and did not return. Although he expects to play against the Quakers, he will not be the threat he was last year when he ran for 77 yards and one touchdown. The Harvard passing game is nothing to write about either, ranking last in the Ivies with only 151.40 yards per game. Despite this, the Quakers still expect the Crimson to attack through the air. "In a big game like this where a championship is on the line, I expect them to throw everything they have at us," Penn safety Bruce Rossignol said. "Seeing as how our run defense is ranked somewhere in the top of the nation and our pass defense isn't, I expect them to come out throwing the ball more." The Penn rush defense is ranked fourth in the nation, allowing only 76 yards per game on the ground. Stopping the Harvard offense, however, will only be half the battle. When the Quakers offense takes the field, it will once again put the ball in running back Jim Finn's hands. Finn needs only 147 yards to become the Penn single-season rushing holder and leads the Ivy League with 13 touchdowns. While giving the ball to Finn will remain the top option, Penn quarterback Matt Rader will have several choices tomorrow. "We are going to just keep going the same way, running the ball and throwing the ball and just keeping them off balance," Rader said. "We just want to give our defense a little margin of error." Rader will have multiple options when he turns to the passing game. Receivers Doug O'Neill, Brandon Carson and David Rogers have all emerged as considerable threats. Each of the three ranks in the top fifteen in the league in receiving yards. Another option, of course, would be to turn to one of the top-rated passers in the nation. Finn is now three for three when the Quakers use the halfback option pass, giving him a 516 quarterback rating. While Penn looks to be the clear favorite on paper, the game will not be an easy victory. "We have a lot of respect for Penn. They have a tremendous running game and a good quarterback too," Menick said. "But we're going in with a lot of confidence. We think our chances are good." When the game clock runs out tomorrow, Penn may have beaten the defending Ivy champs and brought at least a share of the crown back to Philadelphia. The season will not, however, be finished. "I don't think it will be done yet, because we still have the Cornell game," Rader said. "We don't want to share this with anybody. It will be a good feeling, but I don't think business will be done yet."

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