Steve Lhotak came up big when the Penn football team needed him most. Midway through the second quarter of Penn's opening game against Duquesne on Sept. 20, the Quakers were reeling badly. A 20-0 lead was cut to 20-10 and the Dukes had the ball inside Penn's 10-yard line.
Lhotak picked off Neil Loebig's pass and returned it to Duquesne's eight and the Dukes would never seriously threaten again in Penn's 51-10 rout.
The Quakers (2-0) won't have Lhotak -- the only one of five first-team All-Ivy honorees from last year who returned to this year's Penn defense -- to lean on for at least the next three weeks. Lhotak strained his medial cruciate ligament in the first quarter of Penn's win over Lehigh on Saturday.
The Quakers' defense has already suffered major losses this season with safety Kevin Stefanski injuring his knee in practice and defensive lineman Kyle Chaffin leaving the team. Lhotak's fellow starting linebackers -- Luke Hadden and Ric San Doval -- were both banged up throughout the preseason.
And while there is never a particularly good time to lose arguably your best defensive player, this week could prove especially troubling.
Dartmouth (0-2) tight end Casey Cramer was one of 16 players in the nation nominated for the Walter Payton Award -- given to the top player in Division I-AA. He was the only nominee from the Ivy League and the only tight end selected. The senior caught 72 passes for 1,017 yards and seven touchdowns last season. So far this year, he has 10 catches for 92 yards.
Usually in Penn's defense, a linebacker or the strong safety is responsible for covering the tight end.
Both of those players -- Lhotak and Stefanski -- are out.
Before the season, Penn coach Al Bagnoli noted that Dartmouth -- which also boasts the program's all-time leading receiver in Jay Barnard -- arguably had the best group of returning skill position players in the Ivy League. And while the Big Green have suffered a pair of blowout losses, not much has changed on Dartmouth's side of the ball since then.
However, Penn's ability to defend these players has changed.
And, unfortunately, until Lhotak gets healthy, it has changed for the worse.
It is up to Penn's offense to make sure the defense does not need to be out on the field against these potential playmakers for most of the game.
Penn needs to stick with the same strategy it used in the second half against Lehigh when it ran the ball 25 times and put up 15 passing attempts. By doing this, the Quakers held the ball for just under 17 of the 30 minutes after halftime.
Not coincidentally, the defense, which lost Lhotak in the first quarter, held Lehigh to only 46 yards in the second half. The Quakers outscored the Engineers 21-0 after the half in their 31-24 win.
Dartmouth is not nearly as good as Lehigh, which was ranked 19th in the country before losing to now-No. 15 Penn. However, the Big Green are a dangerous team, especially at home. Two seasons ago, Chaffin's block of an extra point with less than two minutes to play was all that prevented Penn from going into overtime with Dartmouth.
Holding Lehigh to 46 yards in a half shows that the defense still has talent, but it does not have the depth to remain out there for long stretches. To avoid even the possibility of an upset in Hanover, N.H., Penn needs to keep the ball on the ground and the defense off the field.
