Dan Coleman racked up a team-high 85 yards on five catches in his collegiate debut last week. But if he'd been told that beforehand, he might not have believed it.
"It was a surprise to me," the junior wideout said at practice yesterday, pausing between words to catch his breath after running extra routes. "Definitely a pleasant surprise."
That surprise accounted for the most receiving yards in Penn's 21-11 victory over Lafayette - more than twice as many as the nearest competitor, junior Braden Lepisto's 37. Coleman also had the longest reception of the game for Penn, a 24-yard strike on the game's first drive that moved the Quakers down to the 1-yard line. Two plays later, senior Joe Sandberg finished the job on a pitch to the left.
And, as if to drive the point home, Coleman pulled down another big catch on the next drive -- for another 24 yards - to push Penn deep into Leopards territory. The Quakers didn't convert on that possession, but the completion helped push the line of scrimmage all the way back to the Lafayette 7, and the poor field position meant that the Leopards had only a field goal to show for their strong effort on the ensuing drive.
At 6-foot-2 and 175 pounds, Coleman looks just as suited to high jump on Franklin Field's track as he is to run a slant route on its football field.
But the Philadelphia native, who also excelled at basketball in high school, has carved a niche for himself in the team's passing game, according to head coach Al Bagnoli.
"Sometimes, the read takes the ball to you," Bagnoli said. "Am I confident that he can catch the ball and do some other things? Yes.
"At some point, somebody had to step up. . I thought he did a nice job, and obviously [quarterback] Robert Irvin did a nice job and answered some of the question marks that we had."
The receiving corps has been a bit of an unknown for the Quakers, but the emergence of inexperienced wideouts like Coleman, Lepisto and senior Billy May was somewhat overshadowed by the speculation over the starting-quarterback job.
The 85 yards that Coleman turned in were tops this week among Ivy League receivers.
Last year's unit played solidly, placing 54th in the nation with almost 200 yards per game in the air. However, Dan McDonald, who led that team and was eighth in the Ivy League with 50.4 yards per game, left the squad for undisclosed reasons.
Penn's victory over Lafayette was the first showcase of this new balance of power within the wideouts.
"Obviously, the focus is on [senior] Matt Carre; he's a great player," Coleman said of the Quakers' passing game. But he also said he was able to take advantage of quarterback Robert Irvin's size (6-5, 210), and Lafayette's blitz-happy, run-stopping secondary to get better matchups on his routes.
On the strong possibility that both Irvin and junior Bryan Walker are likely to line up under center in future games, Coleman said, "Each one has their advantages and their strengths, obviously, over the other one. But either quarterback we go with, we're going to be ready to play - and on Saturday, we went with Irvin, and we were ready to play."
The team was ready to play, but in his first game, Coleman was better prepared than most.
