BOSTON -- Live by the run, die by the run. It's been the theme for Penn all season, and against Harvard on Saturday, that trend continued.
Harvard running back Clifton Dawson and quarterback Liam O'Hagan ran wild against the Penn defense for over 150 yards of rushing, while Harvard's front seven effectively shutdown Penn's running attack.
Dawson passed the 1,000-yard mark for the third straight season on his way to 105 rushing yards and a 5.5 yards-per-carry average for the game.
For the defense it was the third straight week the unit gave up over 150 yards on the ground after not giving up more than 74 yards in each of the team's five games prior to this one.
With the exception of Villanova's dramatic second-half comeback, Penn has won every game in which its defense gave up less than a hundred yards rushing.
Three weeks ago, Penn's rushing defense was ranked first in I-AA.
The last three games, however, Penn has been dominated on the ground, giving up totals of 236, 187 and 176 yards in losses against Brown, Princeton and Harvard respectively.
Penn's rushing offense has seen a decline similar to the decline of the rushing defense.
In the past three weeks, the offense has struggled to establish the run early. On Saturday, Harvard focused on stopping Penn runningbacks Joe Sandberg and Sam Mathews, putting eight and even nine men in the box. The result was a dismal 2.2 yards-per-carry average for the game.
"Obviously we're not capable of getting them off the line of scrimmage," coach Al Bagnoli said after the game.
"They're taking the exact same template that we had against Brown, exact same thing we had against Princeton, and I suspect it'll be the exact same thing we see against Cornell next week until we're good enough to push some people off and scare some people. We haven't been able to do it for three weeks."
A large part of Penn's inability to establish the run, however, stemmed from playcalling. As soon as Harvard went up 18-3 on Kelly Widman's diving touchdown reception in the second quarter, the Quakers abandoned the running game.
On Penn's ensuing drive, the offense ran six plays -- every one of them a pass. In fact, by halftime Penn had over twice as many pass attempts as rushes.
With Penn passing the ball on nearly every down, the Harvard defense was able to key in Pat McDermott and the Quakers' passing game.
"If you can get someone into a one-dimensional game then all of a sudden their playcalling isn't as unpredictable," Harvard coach Tim Murphy said.
Harvard really did seem able to predict Penn's offense once it grabbed the lead. Pat McDermott completed less than half of his passes and threw two interceptions before being benched as the Quakers failed to even get past the Harvard 20-yard line.
