Tale of two halves for Football

This year the football team has been plagued by its inability to put together two solid halves on both sides of the ball.

The Quakers have given up zero points in the third and fourth quarters, yet 38 in the opening two. And the offense has been equally inconsistent, going 70 minutes without scoring before putting up 17 points on 206 yards after the break against Lafayette.

This trend is nothing new. In fact, since the class of 2009 arrived at Penn, the Red and Blue have either scored or allowed zero points in a half on 17 separate occasions.

What patterns emerge from these games?

- Twelve of the 17 have occurred at Franklin Field. This could be a coincidence, but nonetheless, Quakers fans haven't witnessed their share of back-and-forth firepower.

- Five of the seven games that featured a scoreless half from both Penn and its opponent have been decided by one possession or less. The two outliers are Penn's nine-point loss to Cornell in 2005 and its nine-point win (courtesy of a safety) over Harvard in 2006.

- While the Quakers' defensive stinginess has been fairly evenly spread - with seven first-half shutouts and eight second-half ones (good for two 60-minute blank slates) - their offensive futility has occurred mostly after the break.

Of their 11 scoreless halves, eight have been in the second half. Penn went 1-7 in those games, despite trailing only two of them at halftime.

(The three first-half goose-eggs have happened recently, occurring in Penn's past five games.)

- Penn has never been shut out over this 32-game span, the third-longest streak in Ivy history. (Harvard was the last team to blank Penn, in 1997.)

- The Quakers have posted just seven second-half points against Villanova over this stretch, all coming on a third-quarter touchdown in 2005.

They have eerily similar post-break numbers against Harvard, scoring only that lone safety in 2006.

Penn's combined record in the seven games against these opponents since 2005: 1-6.

- In each of Penn's past two games against Lafayette, both teams have put up one scoreless half. Yet the Leopards still prevailed twice.

- Not surprisingly, the Red and Blue are 0-4 when the offense goes scoreless in a half and the defense doesn't pitch a shutout half. Also expected, they are 5-0 when the defense shuts down an opponent for a half and the offense scores in both halves.

Yet it's the seven games in between -- when Penn has both a scoreless half and a shutout half - that help to explain the team's 14-18 record since 2005. The Quakers are just 2-5 in those games (including the two 2008 losses). Simply put, their offensive struggles over the past three-plus seasons have weighed down their defensive successes.

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