Sports Editor Steven Tydings and I talked to Penn men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller as well as captains Stephen Baker, Jonny Dolezal and Duke Lacroix about their surprise selection to host their first-round NCAA tournament game Thursday at 7 p.m.
You'll see at the beginning they were excited to hear their automatic NCAA berth announced, but they were REALLY excited to hear that they got a home game.
I check in with our latest DP Athlete of the Week, Penn men's soccer freshman forward Sam Hayward, who was recently named as Ivy League Rookie of the Week and Philadelphia Soccer Six Rookie of the Week. A timely repost shows Hayward poised to help his squad to the Ivy title just 72 hours later.
THE GOOD - The Comeback
It's a weird game trajectory when one team scores the first 38 points of the game and the other team scores the final 30. But that's exactly what happened at Harvard. Penn's final drive could have tied the game and time wasn't even an issue, a stunning scene after the Quakers were down 38-0 on the road more than 10 minutes into the third quarter. Give fifth-year senior quarterback Ryan Becker for engineering what was almost one of the most incredible comebacks in college football history. In the end, he was just 20 yards short.
THE BAD - The Second Quarter
It got ugly fast. Penn got blown out 24-0 in the second period, Harvard racked up 216 yards of total offense in that quarter alone, culminating in a two-play, 40-yard drive in 13 seconds to put the Crimson ahead by that 24-point margin after a regrettable decision by Al Bagnoli not to kneel down on its own 35 with 40 seconds left at the end of the half set up a Billy Ragone interception.
THE UGLY - The Run Game
At the end of the first quarter, Harvard QB Conner Hempel had netted 15 rushing yards, nine more than Penn as a team. And it just got worse. The Quakers amassed just 75 yards on 29 carries for a 2.9 average, forcing Penn into a one-dimensional situation for much of its nightmare first half.
Welcome to the Palestra on Saturday afternoon for Penn vs. Penn State basketball. I will be bringing the action to you along with the great Senior Staff Writer Kenny Kasper.
Over the last two decades, Tim Murphy has become one of the most accomplished and respected coaches in Ivy League history. He is Harvard’s all-time winningest coach and has won six Ivy League titles with the Crimson. We sat down with coach Murphy to discuss the recent success of the Harvard program, and the challenges of shutting down Penn's offense.
Daily Pennsylvanian: You and Penn coach Al Bagnoli are two of the most accomplished coaches in Ivy League history. Can you talk about the mutual respect you have for each other and also your relationship?
Tim Murphy: First of all, I’ve had a good relationship with Al primarily because I respect the way he runs his program and what he and his staff have accomplished. They’ve had tremendous and consistent success, and I think they’ve done it the right way.
DP: Just about every year recently you and Penn have been in contention, and have had games with big implications. Eleven of the last 14 Harvard-Penn matchups have produced an Ivy League champion. Can you talk about the rivalry between Harvard and Penn, and how it has grown since you first became the coach of the Crimson?
TM: You have to understand, when we first got into the league, Harvard had really struggled. After the 1996 season, I don’t think Harvard had a winning season in 10 years, and we knew that if we were going to get the program turned around and become a championship caliber program we were going to have to compete with the very best programs in the league, and in this case, the starting point was certainly Penn.
DP: This year is a little different from previous years in that the Harvard-Penn game won’t directly decide the Ivy title. Your team has to deal with scenarios that rely on whether Princeton wins. How do you get your players to forget about all the scenarios and focus on the task at hand?
TM: There’s no excuse for not focusing on the task at hand. In the Ivy League, like in just about every other Division I program in the country, you work out probably 300 plus days a year in preparation for just those 10 games, so each game is extremely precious. It happens to be our seniors' last home game. This year we have the most seniors in Harvard history with 36, and they’re playing Penn. So I think the combination of those things makes it very easy to be focused and motivated to play as well as possible.
DP: You’ve had some relatively inexperienced players play a central offensive role this season, namely quarterback Conner Hempel and running back Paul Stanton. Can you talk about how well they’ve adjusted to their more significant roles this year, and your confidence in them to come through in big games?
TM: I think those key skill positions are obviously very important, but they’re only as good as the other guys around them. Having said that, they’ve both done a terrific job. They’ve both proved that they are high-level players. They’re very tough, competitive guys. Those are the type of guys you need to recruit and play to have a chance to be as successful as we’ve been in the last 15 years.
DP: The Quakers have added some speed to their backfield this year with Kyle Wilcox and Spencer Kulcsar. Can you talk about the challenges they present and whether you will need to take a different approach to stopping Penn’s run game this time around?
TM: There’s no question they’re terrific athletes. They’re very fast. Penn always seems to have outstanding running backs, although some of them in the past have been bigger and more physical. These kids appear to have the ability to do it all.
DP: Your defense is second in the Ivy league in interceptions, but they are also giving up the most passing yards. Can you talk about the importance of your secondary play this Saturday, going up against Billy Ragone, a veteran quarterback that knows how to win big games?
TM: When you talk about veteran quarterbacks in this league, you have to start with Billy Ragone. There’s guys that have sexier numbers, there’s guys that may be All-Ivy this, All-Ivy that, but the bottom line is the guy just wins. He’s a tremendous competitor, he’s seen it all, and we have to be prepared for him, run or pass, on every snap.
For more of our interview with Tim Murphy, check out the full Behind Enemy Lines on The Buzz.
-by Seamus Powers
While Mark DeRosa played both football and baseball while at Penn, he was known for his long MLB career.
And that career has come to a close after 16 seasons in the Major Leagues.
DeRosa retired from the MLB yesterday after playing for eight different teams over the last one and a half decades. He will now become a studio analyst for MLB Network after serving as a guest analyst for the network during the 2011 and 2013 postseasons.
While at Penn, DeRosa played for the Quakers football team in 1994 and 1995 as the team’s starting quarterback, helping the squad to an Ivy League title and undefeated season in 1994.
Furthermore, the New Jersey native finished honorable mention All-Ivy while placing fifth all-time in passing yards for the Red and Blue.
Meanwhile, DeRosa played for Penn baseball from ‘94-96 before getting drafted in the seventh round of the 1996 MLB draft by the Atlanta Braves.
DeRosa would spend some time in the minor leagues before making his MLB debut in 1998 at shortstop. After six seasons with the Braves as a utility player and eventually the starting third baseman, he would move on to the Texas Rangers before bouncing around the majors for the next decade.
In his entire career, DeRosa finished with exactly 100 home runs, a .268 batting average and a World Series ring as a member of the 2010 San Francisco Giants.
DeRosa was the last active Penn alum in the MLB but he becomes the second former Penn baseball player to be a studio analyst in recent years, joining Doug Glanville.
Though Penn women's soccer's season is over now that the NCAA Tournament selection committee has passed the Quakers over, the Red and Blue are still receiving honors.
For her performance in Penn's season finale, a 3-2 win over Princeton, sophomore midfielder Erin Mikolai earned Ivy League Player of the Week honors.
Though the Quakers were trailing the Tigers early, Mikolai assisted on Clara Midgley's equalizing goal in the 35th minute, and then fired the go-ahead shot in the 65th minute, a roaring rocket that gave Penn a 2-1 lead it would not relinquish.
With the victory, the Quakers end their season at 12-1-4 with a sterling 5-1-1 Ivy record.
After a 2-1 victory over Princeton, Penn freshman forward Sam Hayward had a chance to celebrate his 61st minute game winning goal that kept the Quakers' Ivy hope alive.
His goal was not overlooked by the powers that be, as he was awarded Ivy league Rookie of the Week. Hayward's game-winner pushes his season scoring total to 5, putting him in first place as the leading rookie goal scorer in the Ivies.
Penn now has a 4-1-1 record in conference play and will head to the Yard next weekend to take on Harvard for a conference championship.
Despite suffering a disappointing loss against Temple, 78-73, Penn sophomore guard Tony Hicks got his due, being named Ivy League co-Player of the Week for his performance on Saturday.
Hicks was an absolute scoring machine, dropping 28 total points, the most points by a Penn player in an opener since 2001. He shot 12 of 24 from the field, adding three three-pointers, three assists, three steals, and a pair of rebounds on the night.
He shares the award with Yale forward Justin Sears, who dropped 26 points and 13 rebounds during the Bulldogs' 93-77 comeback win over Central Connecticut State on Saturday.
Now the commitments are starting to come in steadily for Penn basketball.
After the Quakers nabbed Antonio Woods Monday, they've now landed a commitment from Class of 2018 and high school Sam Jones of Gilbert Christian (AZ), a 6-foot-6, 175-pound small forward.
Rated as a one-start recruit by ESPN, Jones can attack off the dribble and has a reliable step-back shot.
Interestingly, as a junior in this video, Jones told sports360AZ.com hat he wanted to be a physical therapist and so wanted to attend "a good medical school and somewhat close to home," on the West Coast. At that time - March 2013 - Jones was receiving offers from two schools that fit that West Coast bill - UC Davis and Northern Arizona.
Jones appears to have posted this video in August of a 77-63 Gilbert Christian win over Williams Field High School, so watch for him, No. 14 in white. In this video, also apparently posted by Jones, he notes in the video description that he had a 25-point second half against Salpointe Tucson.
You can tell that Jones is lanky with a high release point and less than stellar ballhandling skills. But he does look like he could be a threat both driving to the hoop and stepping back and shooting from the perimeter.
It is very likely that Jones was recruited by Penn assistant coach Scott Pera, who through six years of assistant coaching and four years of coordinating recruiting at Arizona State under Herb Sendek has plenty of ties in the state.
Follow along as Penn men's basketball opens its 2013-14 season against Big 5 rival Temple at the Palestra.
Welcome to the Homecoming football liveblog as Penn (4-3, 3-1 Ivy) tries to tie Princeton (6-1, 4-0) for first place in the Ivy League. The Tigers have won six straight games and is looking to end the Quakers' chances for a fourth outright title in five years. Senior Sports Editor Mike Tony and I will have the coverage:
Daily Pennsylvanian: You went to Princeton and now you've coached at Princeton for nearly 20 years. How has the experience been and how has the school and the Ivy league changed over that time?
Jim Barlow: It’s always been a really strong soccer conference, the Ivy League. One of the things you can count on every year is a lot of parity, and that means there is a lot on the line in every game. You almost have to treat all seven games in the league as the Ivy League championship because you know if you drop a couple, you are out of the race when you only play each team once. And there is no Ivy League tournament, so that part has always been unique to our league.
So in terms of coaching at the school I went to, I feel lucky to be able to do that. I played here when Bob Bradley was the coach here and he went on to coach the U.S. World Cup team and is now coaching Egypt’s national team. And I feel like the environment he created at Princeton challenged us in a lot of ways, and the environment mirrored the academic environment where there is a lot of responsibility put on you to take care of all the challenges that are thrown at you. I felt fortunate to come back to that place and try and continue the kind of soccer that we had played when I was here.
Obviously the game has changed a lot over the time I’ve been here. It’s a lot faster, it’s a lot more physical now. And still, I think when you look at a game like Penn-Princeton, it’s always a game that teaches a lot of passing from both teams and a lot of connections being made by both teams and a lot of attacking from both teams. So it’s always a game we look forward to.
DP: You are a New Jersey native and have been there most of your life, did you ever want to leave the state and get out and be somewhere else?
JB: I coached for about five years at American University in DC but I was also able for a long time from 1999-2011 I coached the U15 boys national team for about half that time as an assistant coach and half as the head coach. And Penn’s coach Rudy Fuller was on my staff with that team. So with that team I was able to travel a lot to Europe a lot, to South America a lot. That part was great because it provided a great way to keep us challenged in the off season and coaching at a really high level and see some really great places around the world. For a really long time, even though I’ve spent most of my time in New Jersey, for a long time I was able to travel and coach at the same time and coach Fuller was a big part of a lot of that time as well.
DP: How is it every year to play against Penn with this big rivalry but also against a coach that you have worked with before?
JB: It’s a really healthy rivalry in that both teams get after it and want nothing more than to win but the teams also have a lot of respect for each other and certainly our coaching staff has a lot of respect for Rudy and his staff. Rudy and I were roommates when I was the assistant coach at American and he was the assistant coach at Georgetown. We became really good friends a long time ago before we came to Penn and Princeton so our relationships go back a long time. We talk a lot, we talk about the game, about the league, about college soccer, and it’s great to have a rivalry that’s so intense but with so much respect on both sides. My brother played soccer at Penn and my wife played field hockey and lacrosse at Penn so I feel like I’ve been close to the Penn athletic scene for a long time as well.
DP: In looking towards this weekend, Penn and Princeton have identical records and are so close behind Harvard, what can we expect from the game?
JB: It’s going to be a really exciting back and forth game. Penn, of all the teams we’ve played, has some of the most dangerous attacking players with their four forwards, who are all All-Ivy caliber forwards. They’ve got some really good weapons in the attack. And they will probably pose to us the biggest challenge we’ve faced in the league thus far in terms of having to deal with really creative, talented goal scorers.
Having said that, I think we are as well of creating a lot of chances and have some guys in our attack who can score as well. So we think it’s going to be an exciting game with both teams getting chances. Like every game in the Ivy League, we think it’s going to be close and come down to who’s a little bit sharper in both boxes and it should be a really good game on Saturday.
DP: What do you think will be the biggest surprise yet to come in the season?
JB: It’s at the point now where nothing really surprises us. Last year Cornell finished first and Dartmouth second and those two teams are in seventh and eighth right now. Harvard didn’t win a game last year and is in first place right now. So it’s really hard to be surprised by anything from here on out. I think both Penn and Princeton are hoping that Columbia can beat Harvard this weekend and then the winner of the Penn-Princeton game would be in first place. So we are keeping our fingers crossed for that but all we can worry about is taking care of the things that we can control and that is playing as well as we can on Saturday against Penn.
In this edition of Behind Enemy Lines, I spoke with Princeton sophomore cornerback Anthony Gaffney. Gaffney was first-team All-Ivy last season as a kickoff returner and put up strong numbers defensively as a freshman. Now, as a sophomore, Gaffney is part of a resurgent Princeton squad that heads into Franklin Field this weekend looking to keep sole possession of first place in the Ivies. In this interview, Gaffney discusses Princeton’s recent rise up the Ivies and the Princeton-Penn matchup for Homecoming.
Daily Pennsylvanian: You and I both went to the Pennington School (N.J.), which is about 10 minutes from Princeton’s campus. How important was it for you to go to school close to home?
Anthony Gaffney: I’d say it was a pretty big deciding factor when it comes down to it. With Pennington 10 minutes away, I have a lot of connections in the area. And when I really thought about it, it came down to [Princeton] being one of the best schools in the country and the birthplace of college football. So really, when it came down to it, that’s what I thought about. I had the opportunity to go to a great school close to home where my family can come to every game and I can be around my sibling [as they’re] growing up.
DP: What was it like to come to school last season and having individual success right away?
AG: It was a great feeling. It was a bit overwhelming at first. I pretty much came to [training] camp expecting to play. Where was a question but the coaches knew I was going to end up doing something somewhere, making an impact. So being able to come into a team on the upswing and starting to turn it around, and then make an impact, [it] felt great.
DP: You speak of that turn around. Just a few years ago, Princeton is at the bottom of the Ivy League. You come in last year as the team gets to a tie for third place and now you in sole possession of first. What does it mean to be part of a program on the rise and back to the top of the conference?
AG: When I was getting recruited, the coaches were telling me, “We’ve been 1-9 two seasons in a row.” Most people wouldn’t want to go to a school with a 2-18 record over two seasons but with the coaches, I could definitely feel when I was talking with them and talking with other players that the program was turning around. It took a little time but it was definitely great to be a part of it because we feel that some magic is happening. We feel like we took our lumps over the last few years but now it’s our time to finally breakthrough and return to the top of the Ivy League. We feel like we have a bit of lasting power. Who knows, but with the team with have now and the [recruiting] class we have coming up, we’re gonna be a pretty formidable force the next couple of years.
DP: Last year, your team was in the thick of the race going into the Penn game at Princeton Stadium and the Quakers pull out the close victory. What kind of motivation does that give your team going into the season but also facing Penn for its homecoming?
AG: In the beginning of the year, we have a bunch of goals that we set out as a team. They were the same last year. One is to win the Big Three, which is Harvard, Princeton and Yale due to legacy and all that, and also to beat Penn. Penn, regardless of what year it is, is a big game just because of the relationship we have. We’re fairly close so you figure that a lot of the guys we recruit, they do as well.
And last year, they beat us. We had all the opportunities to win that game but they took it from us. They beat us. So this year, we’re looking to exact revenge but at the same time, we don’t think they got away with one. They outplayed us and deserved the win, and they got it. This year, we’re trying to right that of course and we’re obviously trying to win on their Homecoming, which is great. Someone’s got to be [the opponent] on Homecoming, why not have it be us?
DP: This year, you personally have fewer interceptions. Have teams been avoiding throws your way and how have you been doing overall in your sophomore season?
AG: Overall, I think if you look at it statistically, you might be saying it is a sophomore slump but a lot of teams haven’t been coming my way. The first three games or so, I can count on one hand all the balls that were thrown my way when I was in man-to-man coverage. It happens that I had a great year last year so teams are preparing more for me. Last year, it was “ok, pick on the freshman. He’s a freshman starter so you want to go after him.”
But this year’s different. I’ve got a season under my belt so people know what I can do so people are trying to place kicks short or kick it to guys on the front line or try and kick it out of bounds. And defense have been throwing the ball away from me and things like that. I expected it coming into the season but overall, I’d say I’m playing just as well if not better this year, and when the time comes and the ball is thrown my way, I’m still there making the plays.
DP: With your team as a whole, you’ve been holding teams to very few points defensively and, at the same time, your offense has been hanging 40 or 50 points on teams like Cornell, Columbia and Harvard. How does it change your job defensively when the offense is able to put up a ton of points and force the opposing offense to be playing catchup?
AG: With the offense, they have the ability to score at will and they have some really fast guys and they are going no-huddle, up-tempo on teams and wearing out defenses. If we get up early on teams, a lot of times that changes what they have to do. For example, a team may want to primarily run the ball a little bit more but if we’re up 14, 17 points, they don’t have time to run the ball. They have to spread out a little bit more, throw the ball a little bit more, so as a defensive back personally, I know we enjoy that a lot more.
It puts us in position to make plays on the ball a lot more than if a team is running draws and plays like that. It definitely puts a little more pressure on us because teams are trying to attack us but we have our defensive line and our defensive schemes, and we just want to get the ball back for the offense. We want to get off the field as quickly as possible because no matter how much we are up on a team, we’re not going to let a team drive down the field on us. We want to stop a team or force them to a field goal or force a turnover and get the ball back in scoring position for the offense, things like that.
DP: Going into the year, your team was picked to finish fifth in the Ivy League. The team goes out and wins its first few Ivy games and then you have the Harvard game where you win in triple overtime. What was it like to go up to Harvard and take a three-OT thriller like that?
AG: It was magical. Building off of what happened last year, us scoring 29-straight points in the fourth quarter and getting that victory, so going into Harvard, we knew that was on their mind. They felt that we didn’t deserve that win and we went up there like, “we’re going to prove to you guys we deserved to win that game and we deserve to win this game.” Going into the game, we were up early and they come back and then it’s back and forth, back and forth. People start to get tighter in the fourth quarter and we knew defensively we had to stick together.
And we go into overtime and overtime is always scary because it is about who gets the ball first. You’re in the red zone and it’s like, “do we go for it? Do we kick a field goal?” It’s so tight. You just want to do everything you can to stop that ball from crossing the goal line. We were able to hold them in the third overtime and allow our offense to get the ball back and score. It was crazy, it was unbelievable. The emotion in the locker room afterwards and on the bus ride home was one of the best feelings in the world.
DP: So now you guys face Penn. What have you been doing in practice this week to prepare for either Billy Ragone or Ryan Becker – you don’t know exactly who’s going to start – and Penn’s offense in general? What are you guys seeing from them on either on tape or in scouting reports this week?
AG: Traditionally, Penn is known for being a tough, physical team. They like to be real big up front. They have big running backs. Ragone is a pretty big quarterback. So we’re just preparing as we normally do, just making sure we’re really physical this week. The kind of stigma going around is that Penn is more physical than we are. They’ve been able to beat up on us the last couple of years so we definitely want to prove to Penn and even the whole Ivy League that we were down a couple years ago, but we are a new team. We’re physical, we’re fast. You want to come at us a little physical, we’re going to match their physicality. It’s just the mindset is different around here. We want to prove that we belong.
After going 1-9 in each of his first two seasons as head coach of Princeton, Bob Surace has turned the struggling Tigers around, improving to 5-5 last season before bursting onto the scene this year with a 6-1 start. We went behind enemy lines with coach Surace and touched on the play of All-American defensive tackle Caraun Reid, the meaning of the Penn-Princeton rivalry, and more:
Daily Pennsylvanian: Your team made big strides last season, but I don’t think too many outside observers could have predicted your start to this season. What do you think has influenced your team’s growth over the course of this year?
Bob Surace: I think the biggest area is that we have been consistent in terms of turnover margin which has been a big emphasis for us.
DP: Everyone’s talking about Quinn Epperly and his performance against Cornell, but lost in the shuffle was the way your defense shut down Jeff Mathews, recording seven sacks. What kind of impact do you think your pass rush will have against Penn, especially going up against an offensive line that’s been struggling?
BS: I disagree that Penn’s offensive line has been struggling. They have run the ball effectively with a number of different backs against a very demanding schedule, and having watched every offensive play they have run on video, they have done a very good job in pass protection as well. They continue to be a physical group and finish their blocks. The added challenge is that both quarterbacks they use are mobile and difficult to contain if we lose a rush lane, and we can’t just “pin our ears back and go” as we did last week against Cornell.
DP: Billy Ragone’s status is up in the air for Saturday. If Ryan Becker starts in place of Ragone, will that affect the way you gameplan for Penn?
BS: They have played two quarterbacks in almost every game I have evaluated the past three plus years, so we will prepare for both as if they are healthy. Like us, having a “righty” and “lefty” does present some complications. The good news is that they do have some similarities in that both have great experience and make excellent decisions as 5th year seniors, they both are extremely athletic, they both have had success throwing the ball efficiently and making plays out of the pocket when necessary, and Ragone cemented his “historic” status last year as one of the few quarterbacks to win 2 Ivy titles as a starter.
DP: Caraun Reid has been having another strong season on the defensive line. How much of an advantage is it having a returning All-American like him, not just as a player, but as a leader?
BS: Vocal leadership is probably the biggest area that Caraun has improved. His growth as a leader has been exceptional and valued by the team and coaches. He is a talented player, but even better person, and that is very meaningful.
DP: The last time your team came to Franklin Field, it suffered a tough 37-9 defeat. Are memories of that game still in your player’s minds?
BS: That is a good question, as I still remember plays we made and didn’t make in some hard fought contests in the late 1980s in our games against Penn. I’m not sure now if our guys remember plays from 3 weeks ago, they move on to the next opponent much quicker. In addition, over half of the guys we will travel this week were in high school or didn’t make that trip in 2011. We will obviously use past games in our preparation, both in previous years and their games against other opponents this year, but we want our guys focused on playing one play at a time in the present once the game starts.
DP: What does the Penn-Princeton rivalry mean to you and your team?
BS: Penn is the defending Ivy League champion and has won 3 out of the last 4 titles. In addition, the consistent success the Penn football program has had over 30 plus years is truly remarkable. They are exceptionally well coached, their players play physical football with great effort and intensity, and we have great respect for what they have accomplished over this long period of time. As importantly, they again are an outstanding team this season and when both teams control their own destiny this late in the race it makes for an exciting game for the coaches, players, alumni and communities.
Before this season, Princeton was picked to finish fifth in the Ivy League standings. But the Tigers have surprised everyone, reeling off four wins to begin Ancient Eight play. They sit in sole possession of first place in the Ivies and junior quarterback Quinn Epperly is the talk of the conference, having set an FCS record by completing his first 29 passes in a 53-20 win over Cornell. Thanks in large part to Epperly’s play, the Tigers also lead the Ivy League in points per game and scoring offense. We go behind enemy lines with the talented signal-caller.
Daily Pennsylvanian: You’ve won six games in a row in almost every way possible, from blowouts to heart-stopping finishes. Have you ever been a part of a team this hot?
Quinn Epperly: I don’t think I’ve been on a team that is this hot and putting up points the way our offense has. It has been exciting to be a part of.
DP: Princeton has lost six games in a row to Penn, a streak that dates back well before you first stepped on campus. How important is ending that streak to you and your teammates?
QE: Winning this week is everything. I don’t think we will be as focused on the streak as much as just trying to get an important win for this season. To accomplish the goal of winning an Ivy League championship, we need to win out, and that starts with Penn this weekend.
DP: Your connection with [senior wide receiver] Roman Wilson may be one of the best in the FCS. How have you two been able to develop such a level of chemistry?
QE: I think a lot of it comes from just working hard in practice. We were also up in Princeton for most of the summer training and working on our timing. He is a fantastic wide receiver and really helps to make a quarterback look good.
DP: Everyone’s talking about the record-breaking completions streak against Cornell. In the heat of the moment, were you even aware it was happening?
QE: I honestly had no idea. I didn’t even know what the previous record was. They announced the record over the loud speaker after our first incompletion, but I tried not to pay attention to it and was focused on just trying to score a touchdown on the drive.
DP: Was there an extra thrill seeing your name featured on SportsCenter?
QE: Yes, it was definitely an honor and fun experience to have. But while it was fun, it is important to me to stay humble and realize that my teammates helped me out a lot to accomplish such honors.
DP: Penn has a very deep and experienced secondary. How do you want to attack the Quakers on Saturday?
QE: I think a lot of it will be just sticking with our game plan. We need to play fast and physical in our pass and run game. I think if we do that and take care of the ball, our offense can perform well.
We break down what went wrong for Penn in its 27-0 loss at Brown last week, and what it's going to take for the Quakers to get the edge in the Ivy title hunt against Princeton Saturday.
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