Watch CBS News

Football: Penn Looks to Stay Ivy-Perfect at Brown

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Another game, another incredible fourth quarter for the Penn Quakers as they outscored Yale 27-5 over the final 15 minutes this past Saturday to turn a 20-10 deficit into a 37-25 victory (see related story).

It's the third time this year that Penn has used a stirring final quarter to grab a win -- they earlier beat Dartmouth and Columbia with last-second touchdown drives -- and Penn head coach Al Bagnoli says confidence levels are high for his team come the 4th quarter.

"Right now (the players) have a tremendous amount of belief that they will find a way -- somehow, some way -- to win the game, and I think they have a tremendous amount of confidence in quarterback Billy Ragone that somehow he'll make the right read, the right throw, he'll scramble, he'll do something to move the chains," Bagnoli tells KYW Newsradio.

"Mentally we are in a great spot late in the games -- we have confidence, we've played in a lot of close games, we've come from behind in close games, so I think we are just where we want to be," he adds.  "Again, if everything works out right we're trying to stay away from those scenarios, but if we need to be in them, we certainly have a track record that would indicate we have confidence in being able to do this."

Hear Matt Leon's full interview with Al Bagnoli in this CBS Philly SportsPod…

Podcast


Click to download podcast

This week Penn visits a very good Brown team that is 5-1 overall on the season and 2-1 in the Ivy League.  Bagnoli says they present a lot of challenges on offense because they give a defense an awful lot of looks.

"They'll bring a tackle over, they'll go unbalanced, they're in all different kinds of motions.  They get into your territory -- you'll see everything from halfback option passes to throw backs to quarterbacks to double passes to everything else under the sun."

When it comes to stopping the other team, Bagnoli says Brown works to crowd the line of scrimmage.

"Their whole objective is to get one more guy in the box than you can block, and they do a really good job at doing that.  They've got tough kids, their ends crash in from the outside and cause chaos, they've got good cover guys," Bagnoli says.

Penn is 4-2 overall and 3-0 in the Ivy league.  They have won 18 straight games in the Ivy League (the longest active conference winning streak in FCS or 1-AA football), and a win on Saturday would give them a school-record 13th straight "Ancient 8" road victory.

Kickoff is set for 12:30pm Saturday in Providence, Rhode Island.

Reported by Matt Leon, KYW Newsradio 1060

More CBS Philly Sports News

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.