After his football team's resounding 30-13 victory over Penn in front of a large Homecoming crowd at Franklin Field, Princeton coach Roger Hughes looked relieved when asked about finally beating the team that had his number during his entire tenure with the Tigers.
"Good," Hughes said solemnly when asked how he felt about earning his first victory over the Quakers on his sixth try -- and the first Princeton win over Penn since 1995. Penn coach Al Bagnoli "has his program at a very good level, and to be the man you have to beat the man, and we felt that coming in here."
Indeed, both Princeton and Penn came into Saturday's game playing on the same level, sporting identical records, with each needing a victory to sit in the driver's seat in the race for the Ivy-League title.
But while Penn had the home-field advantage and a history of success against Princeton, it was only the Tigers (6-2, 4-1 Ivy) who seemed to know what was at stake, scoring two touchdowns to open the contest and forcing the Quakers (5-3, 3-2 Ivy) to play from behind for the entire game.
And in similar fashion as last weekend's defeat at Brown, Penn was hurt by its special-teams play and a poor second-half in recording its first back-to-back losses since 1999.
"For the last couple of weeks now ... we just haven't done a good job of getting out of the gate," Bagnoli said.
"We seemed to lack a tremendous amount of rhythm out there," he added. "We seemed like we were all over the place."
The Tigers jumped out to an early 14-0 lead on the strength of the arm of quarterback Jeff Terrell. The junior signal-caller, who had never seen game action before this season, finished with a blistering 64-percent completion percentage and three touchdowns.
The Quakers botched several chances to gain momentum, the most dramatic of which occurred after junior Joe Sandberg's 25-yard touchdown run with 10 minutes in the second quarter.
An extra point that would have cut Penn's deficit to seven was blocked, and the ball was picked up by Tigers' linebacker Luke Steckel. After racing halfway down the field, Steckel lateraled the ball to All-Ivy cornerback Jay McCareins, who returned it all the way to the Penn end zone for a defensive PAT.
It was the Tigers' first defensive PAT ever, but more importantly, it put the lead back up to 10 and gave Princeton the ball back.
"It was huge," Hughes said about the rare play. "They had driven the ball down the field ... to come away with no points -- I think it's a combination of adding emotion to us and taking away some of their momentum."
The other dramatic series came in the fourth. With Penn down only 16-13 and the Tigers inches away from another score, the Quakers' Michael Johns recovered a fumble by Princeton's Rob Toresco as the fullback tried to extend his arm over the goal line.
But the Quakers' offense could do nothing backed up at its own end zone, and the resulting punt gave the Tigers excellent field position on the Penn 35.
Two plays later, Terrell connected on a 33-yard touchdown pass, putting the Tigers back up 10 with less than eight minutes remaining.
The Quakers seemed to have no answer on offense during the entire second half. Senior Pat McDermott, back after missing the last two weeks from a shoulder injury, threw for 229 yards but recorded four interceptions while completing only 18 of 40 passes.
The Quakers were also held to only 84 yards on the ground as the Princeton rushing attack exposed what was once Division I-AA's top rush defense for 187 rushing yards.
McDermott dismissed his shoulder problem as a viable excuse, instead crediting the Princeton secondary and McCareins for holding the Penn receivers in check.
"We tried to take some shots at [McCareins]. He made some really good plays," McDermott said.
The loss denied Bagnoli's quest for his 100th victory for the second week in a row. But the Penn coach emphasized the consequences of the loss on the Ivy title race rather than on his personal statistics.
"To be honest, I don't really think about those things," Bagnoli said. "I know our kids put in good efforts, I know we have good players. We just need to find out what's missing."
The Quakers will have to win their next two games against Harvard and Cornell to have any hope of capturing the Ivy title, with Princeton and Brown now sitting a game ahead of Penn in first place.
