PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- You could feel the electricity in the air as the members of the Brown football team charged through the gates of Brown Stadium, pump-up music blaring in the background.
They were fired up, playing in front of their home crowd, ready for a game that could put them in solid contention for a run at the Ivy title.
Too bad the visiting team had other ideas.
In its toughest test of the season, the Penn football team rose to the occasion, defeating the Bears, 27-14, on Saturday.
While the Quakers defense held the potent Bears offense in check, Kris Ryan dominated the other side of the ball. The senior back ran for 189 yards, caught two passes for 58 yards and scored three touchdowns to propel Penn to victory.
With the win, the Quakers (6-0) improved to 4-0 in the Ivy League and remained tied with Harvard for first place in the Ancient Eight. The Crimson scored 31 unanswered points in a 31-21 defeat of Dartmouth to keep pace with the Quakers.
With the loss, the Bears (3-3) dropped to 2-2 in the Ivies and will need serious help to get back in the Ancient Eight race.
"It was a very difficult place to play, but I thought our kids did a very nice job of keeping their poise and composure," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "It was a very good game with two good football teams.... We were lucky we made some plays, a few more than they did."
In the beginning of Saturday's contest, though, it was Brown who made the big plays.
In their first drive of the game, the Bears stormed down the field, needing just five plays to cross the goal line. Showing why he's one of the premier wideouts in Division I-AA, Chas Gessner drew a pass interference call on the first play before blowing past Penn corner Fred Plaza for a 31-yard reception down to the one three plays later.
The next play, Bears running back Michael Malan scampered into the end zone to give the Bears an early 7-0 lead.
That, however, would be the lone bright spot of Malan's afternoon.
Averaging 118 yards per game going into Saturday's contest, the Quakers defense handcuffed the Bears running back all day. Malan netted four yards on nine carries, a paltry 0.4 yards per touch.
In total, Penn's rushing defense -- the best in the nation -- limited Brown to minus-26 yards on the ground, the second straight game in which the opposition has rushed for negative yardage.
"I don't know how many times they ran the ball, but it wasn't much," Penn defensive lineman John Galan said. "But when they did run the ball, we shut them down. So they weren't even trying to run the ball, because they had to get some points on the board."
The 14 points Brown did manage to put on the board was well below its season average of 36.4, and wasn't nearly enough to topple the Quakers.
After falling behind by a touchdown, the Quakers went on a 22-play, 71-yard drive in 10:46 to knot the game at seven. Keeping the ball in Ryan's hands practically the entire drive, Penn killed a ton of clock before Gavin Hoffman found receiver Jonathan Robinson in the end zone.
Penn's next touchdown drive was precisely 10 minutes and 10 seconds shorter, as Ryan broke a seemingly innocent screen pass for a 54-yard score.
"I've got to give credit to the offensive line, because [there were] a lot of key blocks made, especially on that screen pass," Ryan said. "I just did my job."
Brown tied the game up at 14 in the third quarter on a one-yard TD loft from Kyle Rowley to Gessner, but the Quakers answered right back in the fourth quarter.
Ryan, clearly Penn's star of the game, added two more touchdown runs to give the Quakers the win and a firm grasp on their quest for a second straight Ivy League title.
