Analysis: Walland's legs beat Football

Penn had difficulty containing scrambling Yale QB Joe Walland. NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- On Halloween weekend, it seemed only fitting that an opposing quarterback sliced through the Penn football team's defense like Freddy Krueger's nails through an unsuspecting victim. Unfortunately for the Quakers defense, this nightmare was, in fact, a sequel. But unlike last week, when Brown's James Perry threw for 440 yards, the weapons of choice this week were the legs of Joe Walland. Walland's speed allowed him to scramble for 57 yards. More importantly, however, the mobility of the Elis' quarterback allowed Yale to open up an air attack to make up for the limited success of its running game. Excluding a 36-yard scamper in the first quarter, Yale tailback Rashad Bartholomew had just 23 yards on the ground prior to the Elis' final drive of the game. But Walland more than picked up the slack in Yale's 23-19 win. The 5'11'', 205-pound senior threw for an electrifying 229 yards in the first half en route to a career-best passing total of 290 yards. And much of Walland's passing yardage came after he was flushed out of the pocket. "We were really worried about [Walland's] scrambling ability, probably first and foremost, and it came back to haunt us," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. Because he could bide so much time in the Elis' backfield, Walland opened up a different dimension for Yale's offense, allowing for longer routes to develop. And a key beneficiary of those longer routes was fullback Jim Keppel, who snuck out of the backfield and into the secondary to catch nine passes for 160 yards. "It just seemed like Joe was putting the ball there and I was always open," Keppel said. Walland, however, did not exclusively use his scrambling ability to move the ball in the air. The Yale quarterback also demonstrated that he had more than just a quick pair of feet as he used his strong left arm to complete a multitude of out patterns to his wide receivers on Saturday. In the end, though, it was Walland's pure running ability that proved to be the death blow to the Quakers, as the Yale quarterback ran nearly half the length of the field in two plays to put the Elis up for good. With under eight minutes remaining in the game, Walland ran a draw up the middle on a second-and-seven play, forcing three missed tackles on the way to an 18-yard gain. And on the very next play, Walland scrambled around the right side of the line, danced along the far sideline and finally cut to the middle for a 29-yard touchdown run. "We knew that his ability to improvise would be something we'd have to contend ourself with," Bagnoli said. Walland's play showed that there is more than one way to beat Penn's defense. Perry's all-out, stand-back-and-sling style perplexed the Quakers last week; Walland showed on Saturday that a who-needs-a-pocket Steve Young style of play can be just as successful against Penn. Walland did get sacked four times for a loss of 28 yards, but such is the life of a scrambling quarterback. "[Perry] didn't have to scramble," Penn defensive tackle Mike Germino said. "When he feels the heat he throws it so he really doesn't get sacked. [Walland's] a scrambler. He'd rather let patterns develop and run around." Excluding the four sacks, Walland ran for 81 yards on 11 carries and accounted for two first downs on the ground. However, a combination of a greater reliance on a sputtering running game and less space for receivers to run longer routes stymied Walland somewhat inside the 20. The Yale quarterback was just 5-of-14 inside the red zone. But Walland's play outside the 20 more than made up for his inconsistency inside it. "Big players make big plays," Walland said after the game. And Walland certainly demonstrated that he could make the big play as he cut through the Penn defense on Saturday. He found Keppel down the middle for 53 yards in the second quarter. He hit Keppel again on an important third-down play after Penn called a time-out to start the second quarter. And he weaved through the Quakers defense and to the end zone to keep Yale in the Ivy League championship race and knock Penn back a game. While he didn't thrust himself into the record books like Perry did, Walland showed both that he was a big player and that there is more than one way to beat the Quakers' defense if you're a top-notch quarterback: You can throw over them like Perry or run right run through them like Walland.