Though TV scheduling issues led to a rare 6 p.m. start time for Penn's Saturday meeting at Lafayette, many Quakers were sure to make the most of their twilight kickoff.
Their antidote to afternoon atrophy? A little scoreboard watching, 21st-century style.
With preseason Ivy favorites Harvard and Yale both opening their Ancient Eight slates early in the day, many members of the Red and Blue employed a marvel of the new millennium to sneak a peak at the box scores.
"The technology of the iPhone," mused cornerback and senior captain Tyson Maugle. "A lot of guys had the scores pulled up while we were at dinner."
Indeed, upon getting wind of the conference powers' upset losses - with Harvard falling, 24-22, at Brown, and Yale stumbling to a 17-14 defeat at Cornell - the Quakers had all the dessert they needed at their pre-game feast.
Coach Al Bagnoli, however, was unmoved by the out-of-town ticker.
"Neither one of those scores totally surprised me," he said. "Those preseason polls generally don't mean a hell of a lot."
Transferring the blame. After completing two of three attempts in his lone series against Villanova, junior transfer Kyle Olson threw just one pass Saturday night at Lafayette: a brutal misfire intercepted inside the Quakers' 10-yard line.
According to Bagnoli, though, culpability for the miscue doesn't fall solely on the shoulders of the lefty signal-caller.
"In hindsight," he said, "I'm not sure that's the best opportunity to put the kid in for his first series [of the game]."
Bagnoli explained that he should have held Olson out for one more set of downs, inserting him into the lineup only when the Red and Blue enjoyed more favorable field position.
This weekend, Bagnoli plans to stand by his commitment to work Olson into the offense.
"He's pressing a little bit," he said. "We gotta get him to relax."
The Wurst is over. Whenever Olson does line up under center, he should benefit from the season debut of Marcus Lawrence, Penn's top returning receiver from last year. After hauling in 21 passes in '07 - good for second on the team - the junior wideout missed the first two contests of this year with an ankle injury.
Penn received more good news from the training room when jaw X-rays on sophomore David Wurst, one of Lawrence's early-season replacements, came back negative.
Wurst had been feeling the effects of a crushing Lafayette hit sustained during the Quakers' final snap from scrimmage Saturday night. On the play, a must-have 4th-and-long for the Red and Blue, Wurst lunged across the middle after a high throw, but failed to corral it as the Leopards' secondary converged.
Gotta pick it up. While this failed fourth-down conversion loomed large in the aftermath of the Quakers' disappointing road loss, their ineptitude on third downs may be the more troubling trend.
Penn moved the chains on just five of 17 third-down attempts on Saturday, lowering its season conversion clip to 33-percent (10-for-30), dead last in the Ivy League.
Though Bagnoli attributes part of this figure to the quality of Penn's opposing defenses, he acknowledges that the number must rise with time - his goal is 40 to 42 percent - for the Red and Blue to succeed in conference play.
