Analysis: Ryan leaves Harvard game with ankle injury

Penn sophomore Kris Ryan left the game just six yards shy of 1,200 on the season but could return next week. BOSTON -- Until you lose something, you don't realize how valuable it really is. The Penn football team certainly proved that adage to be correct on Saturday, struggling to get in gear once starting running back Kris Ryan left the game early in the second quarter with a sprained right ankle. "I give our kids credit -- we just battled," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "When you consider we lost Kris Ryan and we lost Kunle Williams [to an unspecified injury] during the game, we really played hard and I have a tremendous amount of admiration for our kids for hanging in there." Entering Saturday's affair, the Quakers offense was one of the most balanced, and most threatening, in the Ivy League. Through eight games, Ryan's 1,161 yards on the ground had kept opposing linebackers honest and opened up passing lanes for Penn sophomore quarterback Gavin Hoffman. In return, Hoffman's 1,636 passing yards had kept opposing secondaries from loading the defensive front, thereby opening up running lanes for Ryan. Kind of like symbiotic organisms, the Quakers offensive duo worked together to stymie the opposing 'D.' But if you take away one of the two? When Ryan hurt his ankle after catching a Hoffman pass in the right flat with 12 minutes left in the second quarter, the running back had rushed 12 times for only 33 yards. But the sophomore had also caught four passes for 38 yards and had a rushing touchdown brought back by a holding penalty on the offensive line. More importantly, with the Crimson secondary forced up into the box lest Ryan break one for a big gain, Hoffman was able to hit 13 of his first 15 passes for 122 yards. After Ryan went down, Penn's quarterback could only complete 16 of his final 33 passes. The second half saw Harvard pressure and batter Hoffman. Without the threat of Ryan, the Crimson could guess -- and guess correctly -- that a pass play was coming on almost every down. "I don't know if we abandoned the run -- they're a very good run defense anyways, and obviously when you lose a kid who's rushing for a 150 yard average a game, there weren't a lot of options left for us," Bagnoli said. Before Hoffman's 50-yard bomb to Brandon Carson on fourth-and-10 with a minute to play, the Quakers had only picked up 94 second-half yards. "We feel like we're letting the defense down every week, because they're playing so well and so good every week," said Crimson senior tight end Chris Eitzmann, discussing his squad's comparable offensive woes along with his respect for his teammates on defense. Penn running backs Matt Thomas and Mike Verille tried admirably to fill Ryan's void. But the duo could only pick up 26 yards on 10 carries without a rush between them of more than five yards. All told, the Quakers gave up on the idea of establishing any rushing attack in the final 30 minutes. Thomas and Verille ran six times against 24 Hoffman tosses in the second half. "I certainly think the other kids we had [Thomas, Verille] really played great, but obviously when you miss a kid of that stature [Ryan], it hurts you," Bagnoli said. Ryan's strength, speed and ability have not gone unnoticed in this, his first real season of Ivy play. His injury, then, immediately keyed the Crimson in to the fact that Penn could not run the same smashmouth offense with a different back in the backfield. And Harvard's defense responded. "I thought we played tremendously defensively," said Harvard coach Tim Murphy, extolling the virtue of his front line in particular. Still, Hoffman would not be denied. Now the sole focal point of the Penn offense, and without his symbiotic partner, Hoffman stood tall on the game's final drive, converting a third-and-14 and a fourth-and-10 en route to the win. But Hoffman's heroics aside, one can be sure that Bagnoli would rather have both offensive weapons available come time for the season finale versus Cornell next Saturday. With Ryan -- a proven big gainer, although still only a sophomore -- the Quakers are a multi-dimensional offense that is destined to succeed. Without Ryan -- no slight to Thomas or Verille intended -- the Quakers struggle and impart a lot smaller degree of fear in opposing defenses. But fear not. Preliminary X-rays indicate that Ryan's ankle injury is just a sprain. An MRI is still scheduled but there is a good chance that Ryan will be ready to go in five days.

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