VILLANOVA, Pa., Sept. 22 - With star running back Joe Sandberg in street clothes on Saturday night, Penn got a little glimpse of what 2007 could have looked like.
Sandberg, a fifth-year senior who rushed for roughly 100 yards against Villanova each of the last two years, wasn't a lock to return to the Quakers this year after transferring from Penn to Rutgers and back again three years ago. And at Villanova Stadium, a Sandberg-less Red and Blue squad looked like the stars of an episode of The Twilight Zone.
The Quakers could only eke out 45 rushing yards on 25 carries, but the picture is even bleaker after discounting quarterback Bryan Walker's rushing effort. His 29 yards on the ground were good for best on the team and overshadowed the ineffective running-back platoon of Kelms Amoo-Achampong and Michael DiMaggio.
After taking a 14-10 lead into halftime behind solid performances from Walker, fellow quarterback Robert Irvin and wideout Braden Lepisto, Penn's offensive single-mindedness caught up to it early in the second half.
Relying on Irvin's arm to carry the attack, the Quakers soon found themselves floundering - at the beginning of the third quarter, the junior threw two picks in a four-minute span that didn't see a single running play from Penn.
Coach Al Bagnoli didn't know what to make of his team's second half swoon.
"They didn't do anything different," he said of the Wildcats' defense. "We executed better in that first half . second half, same defense, pretty much the same play calls, the ball did not go where it was supposed to go."
Penn, unable to turn to its running backs when passing couldn't get the job done, preferred to go to the fleet-footed Walker on designed runs to mix it up. Villanova wasn't confused in the least, and their defense continued to clamp down on the run while dropping into effective zone coverage.
"I think any time that you take a team's running game away from them, then you're really saying one thing: 'OK, hit us with your passing game and you better make some big plays,'" Wildcats coach Andy Talley said. "I didn't see that there [were] a lot of big-play players [for Penn] that could hurt us in the game."
Sandberg would have undoubtedly lifted some pressure off Irvin, but to what degree would an efficient ground attack have boosted Irvin and the passing game?
Lepisto didn't want to delve too deeply into hypotheticals, but he thought that his team's play was unacceptable.
"Obviously it would have been a big boost just to have him on the field," he said. "You still gotta play football without your best player on your team."
