After taking a helmet to his elbow during the second quarter against Brown on Saturday, running back Joe Sandberg felt some numbness. He then sat out the entire second half.
But did he have to?
"We were worried and they don't have X-ray facilities [at Brown]," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "He may have hurt something, so we didn't play him the rest of the game.
"If we knew [the X-rays] were negative, we would've put him back in," Bagnoli said.
The fifth-year senior had a touchdown and 46 yards on nine carries in the first half before coming out.
"I'm not sure what it was, I watched the play over," Sandberg said of the injury. "But I'll be all right this weekend."
Bagnoli confirmed that X-rays taken later came back negative and that he should be ready to go against Princeton on Saturday. Sandberg did all his reps at practice yesterday.
"Hopefully we'll be able to keep him in one piece for 60 minutes," Bagnoli said. "That will be a novelty."
Sandberg has had an injury-plagued year in his ninth semester of football. After tweaking his hamstring in Penn's season opener against Lafayette, he sat out the next game at Villanova. Then at Dartmouth, Sandberg bruised his back. He sat out the fourth quarter but returned the next game.
Aerial overload. Quarterback Bryan Walker threw 60 times for 36 completions on Saturday.
Bagnoli acknowledged that the number of passes was "not playing to [Walker's] forte."
But two factors contributed to the change of strategy.
"Obviously it wasn't in our game plan to throw the ball 60 times," Walker said. "But we were down by more than two scores [at the half] and without Joe in the backfield we were kind of left without much of a choice."
Walker also threw the ball 60 times in Penn's 21-13 loss at Dartmouth on Sept. 29., which smashed the previous Penn record of 55. Brown's Mike Dougherty is the only quarterback in the league with more attempts in a game this year - 65 against Holy Cross.
What goes around . Last season, the Quakers blocked a pair of field goals against Lafayette, but against Brown on Saturday Penn got a taste of its own medicine.
Andrew Samson's 41-yard try midway through the third quarter against Brown was low and easily blocked. The Bears' special teams broke the line and got to another Samson attempt, this time from 31 yards out, with 22 seconds left in the third.
Bagnoli contributed some of Samson's difficulties to a "wet and lumpy field."
"For the first one I don't think he got a great plant, and he drove the ball very low," Bagnoli said. "The second one was a little bit better kick, but they got better penetration, and he didn't get the ball as high as he has to."
Injury note. After hitting his head during the game, nose guard Naheem Harris sat out at practice yesterday, but is expected to be back on the field today, according to Bagnoli.
- Staff writer David Gurian-Peck contributed to this report.
