Rick Haggerty: Football can't rely on coming back

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Alright, guys, we get the point. You don't need to remind us every week. The Penn football team can score points. It can score a lot of them, and it can score them quickly. Even as Princeton led 24-6 while the first half was winding down on Saturday, I never really thought the game was in doubt. The Quakers proved what they can do last week when they stormed back from almost certain defeat to shock Brown. And after all, this is the new and spectacular Ivy League -- where the games last longer than World Series contests and the scores are straight out of the NBA Finals. But as exciting as these games have been -- and I'm certainly not complaining about a lack of enjoyment here -- is this really what we should be expecting from Penn? Should the Quakers just assume they are trailing every game by three scores from the start and let Gavin Hoffman run a no-huddle offense straight down the field? Is it the only way they can get the job done? After last week's Brown game, Penn coach Al Bagnoli described this brand of football as a coach's nightmare and a spectator's delight. After Saturday's game, he said the Ivy League was a game of survival. It seems to me that if the Quakers keep playing this way, they might just wake up from a nightmare in which they don't survive someday. Saturday's first half shows exactly why. Before Doug O'Neill's outstretched arm crossed the goal line on one of the most impressive and improbable plays of the season, the Quakers were miserable. Princeton is not a very good team, but for the first 29 minutes and 59 seconds of Saturday's game, the Quakers were letting the Tigers have their way with them. Hoffman admitted it after the game, saying, "That was probably as poor a half as I've played all season." It was, but he was not alone. While Hoffman was trying to force passes that were simply not there -- two of which resulted in interceptions -- his teammates were not doing much to help him. Kris Ryan exploded in the second half, but could not really find his groove before halftime. The same goes for a defensive line that held the Tigers to three yards of total offense in the third quarter, but could not contain Princeton in the first half. The offensive linemen missed blocks and opened few holes for the backs, and defensive players missed tackles and let Tigers receivers get open. On one particularly boneheaded special teams play, return man Kunle Williams stood there and watched Princeton's Taylor Smith fall on the ball before Williams ever touched it -- giving Princeton the ball at Penn's six-yard line. And ironically this play -- which epitomized the way the entire squad operated throughout the first half -- seemed to finally pound the message through to the Quakers. They finally woke up and realized they are a better team than Princeton and it was time to start showing it. It was like it was the fourth quarter of the Brown game all over again. The Quakers defense stuffed the Tigers on three straight plays and forced Princeton to settle for a Taylor Northrop field goal -- the last points they would score on the day. On the ensuing kickoff, Williams made up for his earlier brain freeze by returning the ball to the Penn 40. And then Hoffman threw up the prayer which eventually landed with O'Neill, who juked and swerved and finally lunged his way into the end zone. It was clear that Penn was finally alive. Bagnoli went into the locker room and tore into his players with words he said were not fit to print. Princeton coach Roger Hughes just tried to keep his players focused after the O'Neill touchdown. "We were a little deflated obviously," Hughes said. "The first thing I tried to get across was, 'Hey, that's just one play.'" Unfortunately for his Tigers, though, that play and the ones that immediately preceded it called the real Penn Quakers into action. Penn scored three touchdowns in the third quarter and marched on to an easy win. It's the way they do things, and I'll be the first to admit that it's fun, it's exciting and it's unpredictable. The one thing it's not is safe. And if the Quakers don't start playing focused and fundamentally sound football from the opening kickoff, it could spell disaster. Because one day, that miracle comeback just might not be in them.

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