Early struggles and ‘simple mistakes’ hands Penn an Ivy league loss to Cornell
The Quakers dropped their first home loss of the season as Cornell scored 26 points in the second half.
Last year against Cornell, Penn quarterback Liam O’Brien had a breakout game, setting an Ivy League record with seven touchdowns.
However, on Saturday, the Big Red (4-4, 3-2 Ivy) flipped the script against the Quakers (5-3, 3-2) with a 39-17 loss, dashing their hopes of an Ivy title coming back to Franklin Field.
O’Brien finished with under 200 yards of total offense and one touchdown.
“I think the first half, we were just marching the ball down the field, and then penalties stopped us up a little bit,” O’Brien said. “Second half, we just made simple mistakes that killed drives. … we came out in the second half and shot ourselves in the foot.”
After the Quakers’ Donte West scored a 75-yard rushing touchdown, Penn’s defense gave up a crucial third-down in the fourth quarter, while trailing 32-17. Cornell quarterback Garrett Bass-Sulpizio capped the drive with a 1-yard rushing touchdown to seal Penn’s first home loss of the season.
The Quakers need Harvard and Yale to lose for any chance at an Ivy title.
Struggle from the start
Penn’s offense was out of sync. The Quakers opened the game with a failed fourth down conversion — giving Cornell a short field, which set up a field goal.
By the end of the first half, Penn held possession for more than 20 minutes, with a potent running game from West, but the Quakers were down 10-13 entering the third quarter.
“You got to ask yourself ‘Do you want to be here’ and if you don’t, you got to get out the door,” O’Brien said. “I’m not saying that’s the case for our team, but it’s really just a self gut check. ‘Do you want to play football? Do you want to play football every snap?’ And today, we didn’t.”
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O’Brien fumbled the ball on Penn’s first possession in the third which gave Cornell another short field, where the Big Red scored a rushing touchdown by Jordan Triplett — and it added two more touchdowns before the fourth quarter.
“[Cornell] did some things to take Jared and Bisi away,” head coach Ray Priore said. “They played soft, and they said ‘If you’re going to beat us, you’re going to beat us by the run’ and that’s what happened in the first half because we ran the ball pretty effectively.”
Jared Richardson, the Ivy League’s leader in receiving yards and touchdowns, had his worst performances of the year — with only 42 yards and on nine targets.
Legends of the game
Franklin Field welcomed some memorable faces on Saturday, with former coaches and athletes alike being celebrated during homecoming festivities.
Al Bagnoli, Penn’s all-time winningest football coach who wonnine Ivy League titles in 23 seasons, was honored with a bronze statue, forever immortalizing his time with the Quakers.
At the end of halftime, Penn played a video to celebrate the life of Vhito DeCapria, a pediatric cancer patient and honorary team captain, who passed away in early September. Vhito’s family was in attendance for the game.
“We’ve always been playing for him,” said center and captain Will Bergin. “I can’t tell you this game would be any different … deep down, everyone is playing for that kid, even five years ago or 10 years ago — it is always for him.”