Conventional wisdom says that football games are won on defense and special teams. The Penn football team clearly is excelling in the first area, allowing just 34 points in the first three games of the season, including a shutout in the Ivy League opener against Dartmouth last Saturday.
However, there are some areas of special teams that must be addressed if the Quakers are to win a third straight Ancient Eight championship. Foremost among them is the place-kicking.
Senior Evan Nolan was the starting kicker coming into the season. After making both his field-goal attempts and six of seven extra points against San Diego, including a 49-yarder, it looked like the Red and Blue had found the replacement for the graduated Peter Veldman.
Once the Quakers got back to the East Coast, however, things got bad very quickly. Nolan missed all three of his field-goal chances against Villanova two weeks ago, and his first chance last Saturday. All of the missed kicks were from shorter than 40 yards, and three were from 30 yards or shorter. Three of the kicks were blocked.
"We have to get more consistency at that position," Penn head coach Al Bagnoli said.
In order to do that against Dartmouth, Bagnoli turned to safety Bryan Arguello for four extra points and a 36-yard field-goal attempt that was wide right at the end of the first half. The senior has been involved in the kicking game before, converting all nine of his extra-point attempts as a freshman, as well as making one-of-four field goals.
For now, the Quakers plan to stick with Arguello.
"Right now we're going to go to him," Bagnoli said.
He maintained that the Red and Blue are continuing to work with Nolan with an eye on his return to the starting job.
On the opposite end of the spectrum sits punter Josh Appell. The senior is averaging 45.1 yards per punt, with his longest sailing 56 yards. He has placed six of his 16 attempts inside the 20-yard line. His 721 total punting yards are fourth in Division I-AA and best in the Ivy League.
On kickoffs, Appell has been just as good, with six touchbacks in 20 kicks. The Quakers' coverage team has also contributed, allowing only one drive to start in its own territory, with opponents on average starting on their own 27-yard line.
Last week, the Quakers dropped out of the I-AA top 25 in all of the major polls for the first time in two years. The win over Dartmouth put them on the way back. Penn received 12 more votes in the Sports Network poll, and re-entered the rankings at No. 25 in the Any Given Saturday poll, the third of the three major I-AA rankings.
In the ESPN/USA Today poll, Penn actually received nine fewer votes, from 64 to 55.
The shutout of the Big Green brings the Red and Blue to within one win of the all-time Ivy League winning streak of 17, held by the 1992-95 Quakers. The team that ended that streak, Columbia, will face Penn in the Quakers' next Ivy League game on Homecoming weekend.
If the Quakers get by the Lions as they are expected to do, they would have a chance to break the record at the Yale Bowl on Oct. 23.
Penn also ended Dartmouth's 64-game scoring streak, dating back to 1997, which was the ninth-longest streak in Ivy history. The Red and Blue's current streak of 63 straight games is tied with Yale's for second among active streaks, and both teams look to move past the Big Green's mark next week.
The longest active scoring streak in the Ivies is in the property of the Brown Bears, who have not been held scoreless since 1996, a span of 78 games.
The longest such streak in Ancient Eight history is held by Dartmouth, which did not get shut out between 1960-1973, a run of 109 games, before losing 10-0 to Holy Cross.
