Football opens at home in dominating fashion

Dan Allen looked like a man who had an inkling his team had just received its comeuppance.

Holy Cross had just dropped a 43-7 decision to a Penn football team it had pasted 34-17 just a year earlier, and as such, the Crusaders' head coach looked beaten. Yet he hinted that his reversal of fortune is the kind of occupational hazard that comes with devoting one's life to football.

"We knew coming down here that Penn was going to be fired up [to play] this game. You talk about paybacks, and I'm sure it was in the back of their minds." Allen said. "I'm sure they felt they played maybe their worst game against us last year, and in my opinion they played one of their better games this year. The coin was flipped over, we played maybe our worst game.

"That's just the way the game goes sometimes."

The coin was most assuredly flipped on Saturday afternoon at Franklin Field, as the Quakers (3-0) systematically dismantled Holy Cross (2-2), beating them by a whopping 36 points and dominating nearly every conceivable facet of the game. Last year in Worcester, Mass., the Crusaders handed Penn what may have been the most bitter defeat of its otherwise stellar season.

"We were embarrassed last year," Penn head coach Al Bagnoli said. "Thoroughly beaten."

While this was clearly not the same Holy Cross team that beat Penn last year, Saturday's performance likely removed the splinter of last year's defeat from the Quakers' minds.

Penn quarterback Gavin Hoffman and the rest of the Quakers might have been a bit sloppy early on, but they righted themselves while building up a seemingly insurmountable 24-7 cushion by the time the half rolled around.

Hoffman, who ended up with a solid 222 yards in the air on Saturday, connected with Penn wideout Colin Smith in the right side of the east end zone with less than five minutes elapsed in the first quarter to give the Quakers the early 7-0 lead. The score capped a nine-play, 57-yard drive, and Penn would lead for the rest of the game.

Ten minutes after a Bryan Arguello 25-yard field goal gave the Quakers a 10-0 lead, Hoffman jumped one yard into the fray on the Holy Cross goal line for a touchdown to increase the deficit for Holy Cross to 17.

"[They kept] us off-balance defensively," Allen said. "That's credit to Penn, that they did a great job mixing things up between the run and pass. They basically kept us on our heels today."

As the game wore on and Penn kept amassing points, it became clear that the Quakers' defense was as dominating as their offense was explosive. Indeed, the Crusaders amassed a measly 151 yards of total offense in the entire contest and suffered a third-quarter safety at the hands of defensive end Chris Pennington.

On its only decent drive of the game, Holy Cross displayed flashes of the style of play that handled the Quakers easily last year. The Crusaders, led by quarterback Bryan Hall, drove 75 yards for their lone touchdown, cutting the Penn lead to 10 with just over six minutes left in the first half.

Then Kris Ryan took over.

In the second and third quarters, the Penn running back grabbed the game with a choke-hold and wouldn't let go, breaking tackles and dragging Holy Cross defenders along for the ride on many of his long rushes.

"He's a hard kid to bring down," Allen said. "He's a strong kid. He's bigger this year."

On his way to a monster game on the ground -- 166 yards on the day -- Ryan scored the next two Penn touchdowns, one with under two minutes left in the first half and one with under two minutes to go in the third quarter. By the time he was given the rest of the day off, Penn had a 33-7 lead.

Ryan also moved into third place on Penn's all-time rushing last, passing Jim Finn, Jasen Scott and Chris Flynn.

The always-modest Ryan gave credit to his performance to Penn's experienced and skilled offensive line, but lineman Jeff Hatch would have none of it.

"Don't let Kris take anything away from himself," he said of his teammate. "He's not an average running back."

The Crusaders can testify to that.

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