Breaking news: Princeton 31 Penn 30

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Penn football made history here today, but not the kind that anyone wanted. The Quakes are officially out of the Ivy title race after a wild 31-30 loss to Princeton.

Here's the rundown:

Tigers QB Jeff Terrell threw a pair of TD passes in the first half, and Princeton tacked on a field goal to take a 17-7 lead at intermission. The Quakers' lone score came on a 1-yard run by fullback Nick Cisler. Peter Stine, the kicker called up from the sprint team less than a week ago, missed from 23 yards.

After that touchdown, Stine was smoked on his PAT and had to leave the game. Wideout Braden Lepisto relieved him and gave Penn three points in the second, the only scoring in that quarter.

Princeton went up by 14 on another short pass, but Penn's Robert Irvin led dramatic drives of 68 and 69 yards to send Penn to its third straight overtime game, the first time that has happened in NCAA history.

And if you thought the Quakers' kicking woes would decide this one too, you were almost right.

Penn got the ball first and worked it down to the 3. With Lepisto in again, a low snap ended the drive before it started, and you could hear the collective groans way back in Philadelphia.

Here's where it got interesting: the Tigers tried a 34-yarder, and Penn blocked the ball by a good two feet. Princeton got the ball back, Terrell completed a 32-yard pass to Brian Brigham, and all of a sudden the Quakers were down a TD.

They got the six points they needed on a 25-yard pass to Matt Carre, but lightning struck twice on the seventh. Another low snap, another heartbreaker. The Quakers now also hold the dubious distinction of being the only team ever to lose three straight overtime games.

And not only did Penn miss a huge opportunity to put itself back in the mix in front of a large contingent of students, it wasted heroic efforts by Sandberg, Carre, and Irvin.

Sandberg was magnificent all day, torching the Tigers secondary for 173 yards and catching two passes for another 48 even though he was shaken up on a play and missed several series. Carre hauled in five balls for 114 yards, including a huge 22-yarder on a fourth-and-18 late in the game that otherwise would have iced it for Princeton. Irvin matched Terrell tit-for-tat, recovering from some early wildness to keep his team in the game until the very end.

But despite the festivities of The Line and the men's soccer team's big win, the bad outweighed the good for Penn today.

Because for this football team, the bad is quickly becoming the inevitable.