PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- With Division I-AA's No. 2 running back facing the top-ranked run defense at Brown on Saturday, one side had to give.
That side ended up being the Penn run defense.
In his team's 34-20 win, Brown's Nick Hartigan took 39 carries and pounded out 167 yards. In total, Brown trampled the Quakers for 236 yards on the ground. Hartigan also reached the end zone twice, the second of which put the game out of reach out of reach in the third quarter.
Hartigan's numbers are impressive, but they are also nothing new. Coming into Saturday, Hartigan was averaging 158 yards per game and 1.7 touchdowns, on nearly 30 carries.
Hartigan is sitting in fourth place on the Ivy League's all-time rushing list. The only game in which he failed to surpass the century mark this season came in the first game, a 34-3 blowout of Georgetown when he ran for 91 yards.
Before Saturday, the Penn run defense had held opposing ground attacks to 61 rushing yards per game, a mark also better than every other one of the 120 teams in I-AA.
The Penn defense had not allowed a 100-yard game all season before giving up over 200 to Brown. In their three previous Ivy League games, the Quakers held Dartmouth, Columbia and Yale to just 79 yards on 79 carries, and kept them all out of the end zone.
Hartigan knew he was up for the toughest matchup of the year.
"They are a fantastic defense," Hartigan said.
"They've got some great players. [Ric] San Doval is a monster in the middle, as is the other linebacker, [Kory] Gedin, and they have some good guys up front," he added.
On the other side of the ball, the Quakers knew they wouldn't stuff Hartigan the way they have done against previous Ivy opponents.
"The key was trying to contain him, I don't think you were going to shut him down; nobody has," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said.
Despite Penn's efforts the bruising running back won the battle of the goliaths.
While there were multiple Penn defenders hitting him on almost every carry, Hartigan kept grinding out positive gains.
In the second quarter with the score 3-0, Brown faced a third and one at its own 39. The Quakers put up a wall at the line of scrimmage, giving Hartigan no room to move. However, Hartigan darted off toward the sideline where he could face a tackler one-on-one and charged ahead for the first down. The drive resulted in Brown's first touchdown of the game. The play showed Hartigan's awareness and quickness as well as his obvious power.
"We knew going in that he was going to carry the ball 35-40 times ... but I thought we had a good strong defensive line and front seven. He just ended up breaking a couple and capitalized on the short fields," Brown coach Phil Estes said.
On a brighter note, the Quakers did slow Hartigan to a modest 4.3 yards per carry, as opposed to his usual 5.4, but more than that would have been expected from a defense that usually allows under two.
