GAME ANALYSIS: Quakers offense marred again by sloppy play and penalties

Penn committed 11 penalties, turned the ball over three times and missed two field goals as the offense never came to form. LEWISBURG, Pa. -- Maybe the Penn football team should take up riflery or skeet shooting. For the second week in a row, the Quakers appeared to take careful aim and fire directly into their collective foot, as sloppy play and turnovers dominated their offensive game. Last week, Penn coach Al Bagnoli said that his charges were having a difficult time erasing the memory of last Saturday's loss to Dartmouth, where the Quakers literally gave away the game, committing six turnovers. James Finn's fumble on the opening kickoff did little to erase that nightmare, and the Penn mental errors increased exponentially from there. The first three Quakers possessions were three-and-out. But the more obvious problems for Penn came at the offensive line. Penn quarterback Matt Rader was sacked three times due to lack of support and the receivers' inability to get open. In addition, a Rader to running back Melvin Alexander handoff was botched, and Rader ended up having to scramble for a yard. In other words, the offense did not run smoothly, if it ran at all. The mental mistakes, however, took command in the second half, most of them in the form of penalties. The Quakers' first second-half possession started at the Bucknell 21 after the Bison fumbled a punt and were forced to cover it. But Penn's offense couldn't earn itself a first down, despite Alexander's six-yard rush on first-and-10. The Quakers would have to settle for a field goal. The next Penn possession, however, resulted in a touchdown, after picking up a kickoff fumble at the Bucknell 26. But even this four-play, 26-yard scoring drive was blemished. Rader tried to pass to sophomore Brandon Carson in the end zone on first-and-10, but the ball was thrown short and Carson couldn't hang on as the ball bounced off his back shoulder pad. Starting the next drive at the Bucknell 33, the Quakers field goal unit couldn't even keep their heads, as the line caused another false start, moving the attempt to a 33-yarder. Kicker Jeremiah Greathouse then missed it. "Everything looked OK," Bagnoli said. "You think you've got pretty good odds when you've got that kid kicking field goals for you, but he pushed the first one right and pushed the second one right." Again Penn had excellent field position at the Bucknell 25 following another interception, and again it was all for naught. In the first play from scrimmage, Carson first almost dropped the handoff on a reverse, and after running nine yards, fumbled the ball, which Bison safety Josh LaBrec picked up. To add insult to injury, Quakers tight end Steve Gross was called for one of Penn's three block-in-the-back penalties, which Bucknell, of course, declined. The Rader-Carson tandem again looked poor on the next drive, in which Rader tried to toss a ball over the front shoulder of Carson, again in the end zone. This time, Rader's launch could have been caught by anyone on the sideline, but not in the end zone. This pass, however, was set up by a false start at third-and-goal. The false start plagued the Quakers in 1996, and in this instance took a third-and-goal at the Bucknell three to a third-and-goal at the eight. Penn's offense, despite its problems in the third quarter, had finally sparked to life on the scoreboard, making it a four-point game. But that's when the offense aimed the bazooka at its foot. Penn's first fourth-quarter drive was a beautiful 74-yard, 7:21 romp downfield, only to be blown by another botched field goal. This one, however, was a chip shot -- 22 yards, barely longer than an extra point attempt. The Quakers should have scored a touchdown on that drive after Brian Bonanno caught a 26-yard pass in the end zone. Another illegal motion penalty, however, brought the whole play back five yards. "We're just making a ton of mental mistakes from kids who shouldn't be making mental mistakes," Bagnoli said. "It's just baffling me." The Quakers' offensive problems were most highlighted in its last-ditch effort to score in the final 1:29 of play. Bonanno caught a 34-yarder only to be called back for an illegal shift. Two plays later, illegal motion was called on the Quakers. Three plays after that, an illegal procedure flag was thrown when Rader simply wanted to spike the ball to stop the clock. "It gets to the point where you do a good play and you're looking on the field to see if there's a flag for a stupid penalty," Rader said. "We had a lot of big plays called back today." In that series, a Penn snap hit the turf, a short, virtually no-gain pass was caught by Bonanno inbounds so the clock stopped running and Rader was sacked for an 11-yard loss. "They were rushing pretty hard, but there's no excuse though," Rader said. "I got sacked, because they rushed only three people, and they ended up sacking me. We had six guys protecting me, and that shouldn't happen. At all." A flag was thrown on the sack, however, but Bucknell gladly declined Penn's illegal motion foul to end the contest in a fitting fashion.

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