Penn Opens Ivy Play Against Dartmouth
By Matt Leon
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The Penn Quakers play the first of their seven Ivy League games on Saturday as they welcome Dartmouth to Franklin Field.
Penn is 1-1 on the season after losing a non-league game last weekend to Villanova, 35-6. Penn head coach Al Bagnoli came away very impressed with the Wildcats.
"I believe it's one of Coach (Andy) Talley's better teams athletically from top to bottom," Bagnoli tells KYW Newsradio. "They're deep, they're fast, they're athletic and schematically they do a great job."
Bagnoli says they can't let the Villanova loss linger.
"We've got to get our kids playing fast again," Bagnoli says. "We've got to kind of shake off the ill effects of that Nova game as we set our sights on the Ivy opener. There's always pressure in this league in Ivy games because your margin of error is not very great. You potentially can lose one, I think once you lose the second Ivy game, it's pretty much mathematically impossible to be in the hunt (for a title). So an awful lot of pressure and it starts right from the get-go. It'll be interesting to see how our kids respond."
Al Bagnoli Interview
Dartmouth will bring a 1-1 record to town on Saturday.
"They've done a great job offensively," Bagnoli says. "They've kind of gone to a spread attack, quarterback (Dalyn Williams) who can run and throw. They're balanced, averaging over 200 yards a game rushing the ball and over 200 yards a game throwing the ball.
"Defensively, they play very hard," Bagnoli adds. "They're aggressive. They're pretty big up front and they really try to get after the quarterback."
Penn has dominated this series for the last several years, winning 14 of the last 15 match-ups. Last year the Quakers won 28-21 up in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Saturday's game will kick-off at 1:00pm at Franklin Field.
You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.
