Notebook: O'Neill not ready to return to lineup yet

Injured wide receiver Doug O'Neill will miss several more weeks. When Penn senior wide receiver Doug O'Neill tore his posterior cruciate ligament before the Quakers' first game, he was only expected to miss the first half of the season. Well, the Penn football team has already played four of 10 games, and no return is imminent. According to Penn coach Al Bagnoli, "O'Neill is still not back and probably will not be back." O'Neill's absence is a major blow to the receiver corps. Moreover, junior wide receiver Jason Battung is questionable for this week's game at Columbia, but his classmate John Holahan will return after missing last week's Fordham game. The offensive line will also get a boost from the return of senior center Carmelo Rubano. The defensive backfield, however, is getting the biggest aid with the return of seniors Joey Alofaituli and Hasani White, both of whom missed last week's game against Fordham. · After taking a three-week hiatus from Ivy League play, Penn resumes its Ivy League schedule Saturday in Manhattan when it travels to Columbia. Entering their fifth game of the season, the Quakers are in an unfamiliar position. For the first time since 1996, they have started the season 2-2. In direct contrast to this season, Penn opened its 1996 season by losing to Dartmouth and beating Bucknell two weeks later. If the trend continues, Penn should win this weekend, considering the Quakers lost to the Lions by one point in the '96 campaign. The bad news for the Penn faithful is that Penn has never won an Ivy League championship after starting the season 2-2. · Although the Quakers have developed a sound running game and the defense has played well, allowing an average of 314 yards per game -- second best in the Ivy League -- Penn coach Al Bagnoli is still looking for his team to improve. "I don't think we're where we want to be," Bagnoli said. "We have our good moments but we have too many inconsistencies. Some of it is caused by youth, some of it is caused by injury." In fact, Bagnoli is looking for more consistency in all aspects of the game. "One play we can run and get 50 yards for a touchdown and the next play we don't block a soul," Bagnoli said. "On one play we'll stop them for no gain and on the same play they get 12 yards. One time we punt the ball 50 yards, the next time we punt it 12." · After just four collegiate starts, Penn sophomore running back Kris Ryan has already entered the Penn record books. His 256-yard rushing performance against Fordham on Saturday is third best in Penn history, behind Terrance Stokes' 272 and Jim Finn's 259; Ryan, however, did set the record for most rushing yards in a non-conference game. "I'm just playing my heart out, trying to have some fun and trying to win some games," Ryan said. "It's been kind of surprising to myself that I've been having so much success." If Ryan continues at this pace, he'll own every record in the book. He is averaging 147 yards per game, which means he's on pace to graduate with 4,410 career yards. That would put Ryan over 1,200 yards ahead of Bryan Keys, who currently holds the Penn career rushing record with 3,137 yards. With 4,410 yards, Ryan would also have the most yards of total offense in Quakers' history, breaking Jimmy McGeehan's record of 4,087 yards -- 3,954 passing and 133 rushing. "He's got a pretty nice combination," Bagnoli said. "He's 225 to 230 pounds and he's fast -- nobody has caught him yet -- and he's fairly elusive. He's making people miss in the open field." His ability to make Fordham miss earned him a spot on the Ivy League honor roll for this week. · Penn's 1-0 conference record is currently good for second place in the Ancient Eight. The surprise is that Penn is looking up at Cornell in the standings. Cornell? The same Cornell team that was picked to finish seventh in the preseason media poll? Yes, that Cornell. After clobbering Princeton in its season opener, the Big Red have since upset Brown on the road and staged a last-minute comeback to defeat Harvard. "They went to Princeton, got a big win and huge confidence boost and now they think they can win," Bagnoli said. "They're so young they probably don't know any better." Cornell has been led by sophomore quarterback Ricky Rahne, who leads the Ivy League with 1,279 yards passing and 10 touchdown passes. The Big Red lead the league in passing offense and are second in passing defense. "The only thing that I've learned in this league is that regardless of where you are picked, this league has tremendous parity and if you can get your skilled kids to play well -- and their skilled kids, the quarterback specifically, are playing well -- you have a shot every week," Bagnoli said. The last time the Big Red started their Ivy League season 3-0 was in 1994, when Penn was also 3-0 in the conference. Cornell went on, however, to lose its last four league contests. Meanwhile, the Quakers won their last four, including an 18-14 victory over the Big Red in the season finale to cap off an undefeated season.

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