Penn falls to Brown despite a late comeback push by quarterback Karson Siqueiros-Lasky
The Quakers didn’t score a touchdown until the second half, after starter Miles Teodecki was benched. Rick Santos said his team “had too many missed opportunities on offense.”
Penn football coach Rick Santos made it clear that there are no “solidified jobs.”
When Penn’s offense was stagnant against Brown on Saturday in Providence, Rhode Island, Santos benched freshman starting quarterback Miles Teodecki for junior quarterback Karson Siqueiros-Lasky.
Siqueiros-Lasky threw two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, but he also had a costly interception that resulted in Brown points on its next possession. Penn tried to make a comeback in the final two minutes, when freshman wide receiver Mason Page hauled in a touchdown over three Brown defenders.
But Brown responded with a 46-yard touchdown off of Penn’s onside kick to seal a 36-17 loss and moved the 3-4 Quakers to seventh in the Ivy League.
“We had too many missed opportunities on offense. I think the game was moving a little fast for Miles,” Santos said. “We still have all the confidence in the world in him. But sometimes when the offensive is stagnant, you got to make a change to get a spark, and I thought Karson gave us that in the second half.”
Tale of two quarterbacks
Coming out of halftime, with Penn trailing by two scores, Santos pumped up his players, yelling, “Tale of two halves!”
It turned out to be a tale of two quarterbacks.
Teodecki started but couldn’t get anything going on offense. He finished with 49 yards, and Penn crossed the midfield for the first time halfway through the second quarter, after senior linebacker Joey Holliday picked up a fumble.
Teodecki, who completed 7 of 21 passes, relied on his run game. He recorded a team-high 31 rushing yards.
» READ MORE: Miles Teodecki had offers from Power Four schools. The quarterback chose Penn instead.
Santos put Siqueiros-Lasky in to jumpstart Penn’s offense at the end of the third quarter, and the junior quarterback threw 193 passing yards and completed 18 of 26 passes.
Quakers senior linebacker Cole Olsztyn — who tallied 13 total tackles — forced an interception that Siqueiros-Lasky capitalized on with Penn’s first touchdown in the fourth quarter.
“We were down, but we can’t look at it from the perspective of, ‘You got to be a superhero,’ so just try to take it one play at a time,” Siqueiros-Lasky said.
In the first half, Brown had 135 receiving yards to go along with its 17 points. Penn flipped the script in second, with 213 receiving yards and held Brown to 97.
Running out of time
After Siqueiros-Lasky threw an interception with four minutes left in the final quarter, Brown scored another touchdown.
But Penn continued to climb back.
On the 4th down-and-11, Siqueiros-Lasky threw a pass intended for junior wide receiver Ronan Johannson, but tipped off Johannson’s fingers and was deflected into Page’s waiting arms.
With less than a minute left in regulation, on 4th down-and-20, Siqueiros-Lasky rolled to the right and threw a touchdown pass to Page at the corner of the endzone to trail by 29-17.
But ultimately there wasn’t enough time to put more points on the board, and with 49 seconds remaining, Brown linebacker Max Malo returned Penn’s onside kick for a touchdown.
“This was by far the worst overall performance we had in the year,” Santos said, “This was the first game where we just couldn’t quite gain the momentum back and give ourselves a chance to make this a competitive game.”
Up next
Penn will visit Cornell (3-4) next Saturday (1 p.m., ESPN+). Both teams are 1-3 in the conference.
