These are not your older brother's Quakers.
The Penn football team continues to win Ivy League games, but in a very different fashion from the 30-point victory margins of the past two seasons.
The Red and Blue only came to play for two minutes on Saturday, but it was enough to defeat Brown, 20-16.
"It was a great game if you were a fan, an awful game if you were a coach," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said.
The Bears played winning football, outmatching Penn in every aspect of the game. However, they could not hold on for the victory, as their defense buckled under Penn quarterback Pat McDermott's aerial attack on the Quakers' final drive.
Penn marched 88 yards in 2:10 at the end of the fourth quarter, ending the drive with a Sam Mathews touchdown run that gave the Quakers the lead.
And with only 50 seconds left to play, it was a lead that the Quakers could hold.
"We just didn't have enough time to finish," Brown coach Phil Estes said.
Before the last-minute touchdown drive, Brown held a 16-13 lead on the strength of a touchdown on the game's opening drive and three field goals (from 31, 35 and 40 yards) from freshman kicker Steve Morgan.
The Brown offense was led by junior running back Nick Hartigan, who had a whopping 176 rushing yards on the day.
"He makes you miss, and that's what really good backs do," Bagnoli said.
Luckily for Penn, the defense stopped the Bears inside the red zone, forcing field-goal attempts instead of giving up touchdowns.
The game's turning point came with Brown knocking on Penn's doorstep. In the third quarter, Brown made its way to the Penn two-yard line after defensive back James Gasparella picked off a McDermott pass. McDermott threw three picks on Saturday, two of which were snagged by Gasparella.
Hartigan got the call, and he pounded the line for what looked like a typical goal-line carry. But when the smoke cleared, Penn defensive end Bobby Fallon had the ball in his hands, and Penn had stopped the Bears from adding insurance points to their lead.
"I thought I was down [before the fumble], but you're never supposed to give the referees a chance to make a call," Hartigan said.
"Obviously it hurts when you have the ball on the 1-yard line and don't get in," Estes said. "But it had nothing to do with [Hartigan]. ... He has made some big plays and will continue to make big plays for us."
This play was typical of the Penn defense on Saturday, which made the crucial stops to keep the offense in the game.
"I'm just glad the defense put us in a position to be able to go on that final drive and win the game," McDermott said. "They can't bail us out every time. I feel like they did that today."
Hartigan "is a big guy and they are a really physical team, so it wears on you a little bit," Fallon said. "We just had to dig deep."
The Penn offense was forced to adjust its strategy mid-game as the Brown defense clamped down on Mathews, holding him to just 32 rushing yards, a far cry from his 169 yards against Yale last week.
"Every team we're playing is putting nine guys in the box," Bagnoli said. "Our ability to run the ball is just so constricted. We never totally scared them off until the end."
It took Penn almost the entire game to adjust to Brown's tough defensive schemes.
"We dropped an awful lot of balls today," Bagnoli said. "We caught when we had to, but leading up to that point. ... We were not in sync, and a lot of that was caused by Brown."
Two players left Saturday's game with injuries. Brown quarterback Anthony Vita left before the final drive after suffering what looked to be a broken arm when he collided with another player's helmet. He will likely miss the rest of the season.
Penn defensive back Bryan Arguello came down hard on his ankle after intercepting a pass to end Brown's final drive. Bagnoli does not consider the injury to be serious.
Coming back from behind to win has become typical of this year's Quakers.
"We told our kids that [Brown] is a very dangerous team, but I'm not sure I did as good a job conveying that as I should have," Bagnoli said. "We just had enough resolve in the end to squeak one out. We're very fortunate to get out with a win and move on another day."
"When you win 19 straight Ivy League games, you have to be doing something right," Estes said. "As far as I'm concerned, that's the best offense I've seen."
NOTE: Senior wide receiver Dan Castles' second-quarter touchdown catch was the 26th of his career tying him with Miles Macik for the all-time Penn record.
