Piela brothers rumble in the Bronx

Penn football co-captain Joe Piela meets brother and fellow safety Jon for family bragging rights. The toughest decision in Saturday's Penn-Fordham football game won't be what play to call. It won't be where Matt Rader should throw the ball. In fact, it won't even be on the field. The real drama will come in the stands, when the people sitting next to Joe Piela's parents ask them who they want to win. That's because when Penn (2-1) travels to Fordham (2-2) tomorrow, it marks the first and last collegiate matchup between Penn senior co-captain Joe Piela and his brother Jon, Fordham's starting strong safety. "It's probably an interesting time for the Piela parents right now? which side the Piela missus is going to sit on," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "But since everybody sits on the same side there, that isn't even a problem." "They said they're going to root for both defenses because we both play defense," Jon Piela said. Although the two never squared off on the football field, they did wrestle against each other in high school. Did Joe beat up on his little brother? "We went back and forth," Jon said. "We usually ended up breaking out in a fight." While both Pielas play in the defensive backfield, they will get the opportunity to square off when Joe returns punts for Penn and Jon is in coverage. "He's telling me how he's going to take my head off on one of those punts," Joe said. Besides dreaming about maiming his brother this weekend, Jon Piela has been hard at work "scrounging up tickets." "We have 50 people coming to this game," Jon said. "My parents are going to bring hoagies and we're all going to tailgate in the parking lot after." Fordham comes into the 1 p.m. game at Jack Coffey Field in the Bronx fresh off last week's 20-17 overtime win over Princeton. Penn is looking for a repeat of last week's victory over Bucknell, who also fell to the Rams earlier this year. Penn won its only two previous meetings with the Rams, sweeping a home-and-home series in 1992 and 1993. Besides the younger Piela, Fordham also sports senior co-captain Steve O'Hare, who is one of the best quarterbacks the Quakers will face this season. O'Hare has thrown for over 250 yards in each of his last two games and is second in the Patriot League in passing yards per game. "They average 225 yards a game passing, so we'll have to play well in the secondary, pressure the quarterback, mix coverages up and do the usual things that you have to do against teams that can throw the ball well," Bagnoli said. The Quakers expect to see a pass-oriented offense similar to Bucknell's attack last weekend. But Fordham coach Ken O'Keefe hopes to revive an inconsistent running game that struggled against Princeton. "We would like to be a balanced offense, which means about 60 percent run, 40 percent pass," O'Keefe said. "We're not game-planning any differently than we normally would as far as ratio's concerned." Penn's defense, however, has been pretty impressive this year. They are giving up an average of 210 yards per game, which puts them first in Division I-AA. Against Bucknell, the defense was sparked by Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week Joe Piela, who had a late interception and a punt return for a touchdown. The defense has been especially strong against the rush, where the Rams only mustered 20 yards on 33 attempts last week. Another encouraging sign for the Quakers is the improving health of the offensive line. Bagnoli hopes to play tackle Jason Lebron a couple of series as he comes back from a knee injury. Fordham's defense is led by Matt Harris, a senior defensive end who leads the Patriot League with five sacks. He also leads the league with eight tackles for losses. But this game will have more meaning that most non-conference games because of the high school and family reunions. Besides the Piela brothers, Penn's Jim Finn, John Galan, Ed Galan, Todd Giblin and Carmelo Rubano, and Fordham's Bryan O'Dea are all graduates of New Jersey's Bergen Catholic High School. "It'll be interesting because I played football with [Jon Piela] all my life and I wrestled with him," Penn co-captain Finn said. "He'll be coming after me, coming to tackle me, trying to knock my head off." While the game is still a day away, the verbal battle has already gotten started. "Fordham is going to win," Jon said. "Of course, I tell him that. We were talking smack about both teams last night." But Joe tells a different story. "[Jon] likes to talk.? I'm not really a big talker, though," he said. "Once the game's over, then I can start talking." Those sound like fighting words coming from the City of Brotherly Love.

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