This weekend's Ivy League matchup between Dartmouth and Penn could have upset written all over it.
Fresh off an emotional, come-from-behind 31-24 victory over a highly rated Lehigh team this past Saturday, Penn (2-0) will again be on the road. This time the Quakers will make the longer trek to Dartmouth.
"It's a league game, a six-hour bus ride and a team that played really well up there," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "We keep reminding [the players] of what happened to us up there two years ago. They're dangerous."
The last time these two teams met up in Hanover, N.H., Penn entered the game as the highly favored team. However, the Quakers struggled to a 21-20 victory courtesy of a blocked extra point by then-junior defensive lineman Kyle Chaffin.
Chaffin is no longer playing for the Red and Blue. But, as the preseason favorite to win the league championship, there are expectations for Penn to start the year off with a win.
While Penn beat Duquesne and Lehigh, the Big Green (0-2) started off the year with two lopsided losses to Colgate, 31-9, and New Hampshire, 42-17.
Along with the concern of having a potentially emotionally drained team after the Lehigh win and the pressures that come along with being the clear favorite to repeat as league champions, Penn will have to play this Saturday without the aid of senior All-Ivy linebacker Steve Lhotak.
After injuring his right medial collateral ligament in Saturday's victory, Lhotak is expected to miss up to four weeks. A defense already decimated by injury -- with starting safety Kevin Stefanski out for the season -- will now be playing without its best all-around player.
"Everyone just knows their role, the second string becomes the first and they have to carry the torch," junior linebacker Luke Hadden said.
The defense's focus this weekend will be squarely on Dartmouth's tight end Casey Cramer. The senior -- a two-time All-Ivy selection -- currently has 137 career receptions and 1,874 receiving yards at Dartmouth.
"Their tight [end] is a legitimate NFL prospect, so were going to have to shut him down. It's our second week of practicing against a good tight end and Cramer is even better than [Lehigh's Adam] Bergen."
The Quakers held Bergen to one catch for 16 yards.
Offensively, however, the Quakers seem ready for another outburst. After scoring 82 points through two games, they will now face off against a Dartmouth defense that has been torched throughout its opening two contests, giving up 73 points in two games.
"There's always a little pressure on the offense to put some points on the board," Bagnoli said. "You'd like to put some points up early and take the wind out of their sails."
In last year's game at Franklin Field, senior quarterback Mike Mitchell abused Dartmouth's secondary on his way to compiling 428 yards passing and four touchdowns en route to leading Penn to a 49-14 blowout victory.
"We can't have a letdown this week going into the first Ivy League game," Mitchell said. "We've seen a little bit of film and hopefully we'll be able to do the same thing that we did last year."
