If Penn sprint football coach Bill Wagner thinks he had it rough on Saturday, he should spend a day in Tom Cocuzza's shoes.
The Princeton coach was on the wrong end of an 83-0 drubbing at the hands of Navy, the team that Wagner accused of running up the score in a 56-7 wipeout of the Quakers last weekend.
But Cocuzza didn't agree with Wagner's claim that Navy is a "cheap-shot" team that deliberately tries to hurt opponents through methods such as illegal cut-blocks.
Instead, he portrayed the 5-0 Midshipmen as a hard-nosed team that pushes at the boundaries of fair play, but rarely crosses them.
"I certainly didn't see any illegal cutblocking" during the 83-0 loss, Cocuzza said. "They cut [legally] a lot. I think they got called for it once, but that's gonna happen."
Wagner accused the Midshipmen of intentionally trying to injure Penn players.
"If they block us and kick the shit out of us, fine, but don't try to hurt people, go for the knees, throw forearms and that's what they were doing to some of the kids," the Penn coach said after Saturday's game.
But Cocuzza, whose Tigers had to forfeit a game earlier in the year after their scant roster was decimated by injuries, had no such complaints.
"They play through the echo of the whistle," the second-year coach said. "That's how those guys play. . I wouldn't expect anything else from Navy."
And despite conceding 80 points in three quarters to a relentless ground attack, he praised Navy's conduct during the blowout.
"They handled it well against us," he said. "To be honest, I think they could have scored more than the 83 they got."
Wagner had called out Navy for running up the score. Navy coach Jake Jenkins left his starters in well into the fourth quarter. At one point in the final frame, the Midshipmen executed a fake punt on fourth-and-short with the game already well in hand.
Cocuzza said he felt more lenient standards of sportsmanship applied to running up the score in sprint football, since sprint players play fewer games than heavyweight football players.
He suggested that Navy, a perennial Collegiate Sprint Football League powerhouse, might also have a chip on its shoulder after narrowly missing out on a third straight title last year.
"My attitude is, if you don't want them scoring, stop them, and if you can't stop them, you keep your mouth shut," he said.
An Athletic Department spokesman said neither Penn nor Wagner needed to clarify or amend his remarks. Wagner did not return phone calls.
Yesterday evening, Penn players were instructed not to talk to the media, and no players commented on the remarks. Calls to several former players were not returned.
A Navy athletic spokesman said Jenkins would not publicly address Wagner's accusations. According to the spokesman, the two coaches spoke yesterday afternoon, and "there are no hard feelings" between them.
He did not say whether Wagner stood by his accusations.
- Staff writer Ari Seifter contributed reporting to this article.
