If it happened again, I'd take the safety

There are many things to blame the loss on, and even some of them were peculiar coaching decisions (a certain misused final two timeouts), but Al Bagnoli's choice to allow a purposeful safety should not be one of them.

It was true that the call made the Quakers within field goal range of Lafayette, but it was really the Penn defense that did that.

Whatever they were faced with -- a very short field two points up, or more than a half-field four up -- the defense uncharacteristically did not do its job on that final drive. The unit that forced four turnovers, 268 total yards, 3.2 yards per carry and was 2 for 15 on third downs (let that last stat sink in for a second) in the first 15 drives of the game, faltered on the final one that would have sealed the win.

The No. 25 Leopards marched 44 yards on 12 plays, eating up the final five minutes of the game, and chipping in a field goal. Quarterback Mike DiPaola went 3 for 3 for 16 yards and the rushing game took eight carries for 28 yards - it doesn't sound good, but on three of those the Leopards were just setting up the field goal.

The Quakers forced Lafayette into two third down conversions (other than when they got inside the 20-yard line and were setting up the field goal) of five and eight yards, and the Leopards proceeded to miraculously get rushing gains of six and 10 yards.

With the ball on its own 1-yard line, Bagnoli opted to give Lafayette two points in order to be able to punt from the 20-yard line without a rush, with room behind punter Anthony Melillo so that he could step further back and with the coverage team all attacking the ball, instead of most of them blocking. The result wasn't as good as it could have been -- a 46-yard punt (which would have been shorter if it was a real punt because there was no long snap) and a 12-yard return, but the ball was at Lafayette's 46 yard line, not what, I'm guessing, would be at best Penn's 30, probably worse.

If Lafayette had gotten the ball at the Penn 30, can you doubt that with the same effort they would have still drove through for a touchdown? At least Penn got to put it into the hands of a kicker who was 1 for 5 on the season with a long of 21 yards.

So to recap: 1) Penn was stuffing Lafayette, so it was not worth it to risk a blocked kick, 2) The punt saved at least 25 yards, and Lafayette probably would have done the same thing after returning Melillo's cramped punt inside the 30-yard line, and 3) the only field goal Lafayette's kicker made this season was 1.5 yards longer than an extra point.

At first I thought this idea was dumb, but if I was coaching Penn and next week the exact same thing happened, I'd take the safety again. Coaches in the NFL do it often in a similar situation (not up 4 points, but still), and it wasn't dumb for Bagnoli to.

It certainly was a roll of the dice, and the Red and Blue lost. Still, they had more chance to win playing that game than any other.