Penn comes back to beat Lafayette
Penn's season began with simple displays of remembrance. The Quakers then needed vast physical and emotional reserves - and three interceptions by a senior cornerback - to turn Saturday night's opener at Franklin Field into a keepsake.
Penn's season began with simple displays of remembrance. The Quakers then needed vast physical and emotional reserves - and three interceptions by a senior cornerback - to turn Saturday night's opener at Franklin Field into a keepsake.
Despite dominating the stat sheet, the Quakers trailed for most of the night before rallying for a 19-14 thriller. The Quakers finally scored a go-ahead touchdown with just less than 61/2 minutes left, finishing a punishing, 75-yard, 14-play drive that featured 13 runs and took 7 minutes, 27 seconds.
Penn overcame a first half in which it trailed by eight points at the break despite allowing just one first down to Lafayette. The Leopards (0-2) had put up one score on a blocked punt and another, 92 seconds later, on a tipped pass that a Lafayette lineman grabbed and ran with 25 yards untouched.
"Crazy things happen in the opener," Quakers coach Al Bagnoli said. "We have some young kids. It was the first game, and it was the first half of the first game, which makes it a little more wild and woolly. You have to do a good job of weathering the storm. We slowly got the game under control."
Even when the game looked over, when Penn was just running out the clock, a fumbled snap with 1:08 left gave Lafayette the football at its own 46-yard line. The game ended with the Leopards taking a last shot at the end zone from 38 yards away. A completion and two laterals almost worked, getting Lafayette to Penn's 8-yard line.
Penn had called time-out before the last play. There were 25 helmeted Quakers in that last huddle listening to the coaches.
For the coin toss, six Quakers players had walked to midfield at Franklin Field. Two had been elected captain last spring. The third elected captain, Owen Thomas, an enormously popular figure on the team, took his own life in April. His four roommates walked out in his place.
Franklin Field's public-address announcer asked for a 40-second moment of silence. Thomas had worn No. 40 as a defensive end for the Quakers.
At the 40th second, a backup at Thomas' defensive-line position dabbed at his face with the top edge of his football jersey and quickly put on his helmet. That was it, a simple but effective ceremony.
Jon Saelinger, who had the three interceptions, said that during the 40 seconds of silence, he just thought of good memories of Thomas, on and off the field.
"I thought that was a really good gesture," Saelinger said of the 40 seconds of silence. "It's always going to be different without Owen, but we really use that with a purpose, as a rallying cry. We really haven't hung our heads."
The moment of silence also honored another central Penn football figure. In fact, there is another decal this season on Penn football helmets, in addition to the No. 40 honoring Thomas.
Dan "Lake" Staffieri was a Quakers football legend, a 33-year member of the football "family," a former assistant football coach who became the team's official game-day coordinator, leading cheers, both within the team and throughout the campus, driving around in a golf cart, using a bullhorn.
His was the first hand Penn players touched while running out of the tunnel before games. He died of cancer in April, at age 85.
Saturday night's victory was the 800th in Penn football history. It also broke a three-game losing streak to Lafayette. But those are statistical footnotes, not what the game will be remembered for around Franklin Field.
