Despite gaffes, Football tames hapless Lions

NEW YORK -- The Penn football team might not always be stylish, but the Quakers still get the job done with plenty of breathing room.

Against Columbia (0-4, 0-2 Ivy League) on Saturday, Penn committed 10 penalties, regularly saw its offense stall in the red zone, missed two field goals, and still coolly administered a 35-7 drubbing to the Lions in front of a Homecoming crowd of 10,644 at Baker Field.

Running backs Kris Ryan and Jake Perskie combined for 209 yards and three touchdowns for the Quakers (4-0, 2-0), while Rob Milanese caught eight passes for 98 yards.

Penn is now tied with 2-0 Harvard for first place in the Ancient Eight. The Quakers also moved into the USA Today/ESPN Division I-AA Top 25 (at No. 24) and rose to No. 22 in the Sportsnetwork poll.

Quakers quarterback Gavin Hoffman completed 25-of-32 passes for 244 yards -- two more yards than Columbia's entire offense put up all day. Hoffman threw one touchdown pass and rushed for another six points before leaving the game with 10 minutes to go in the fourth quarter.

The Penn senior did not throw any interceptions on Saturday, his first pick-free game since last season's contest against the Lions.

"Usually, I'm pretty good for an interception or two," Hoffman said. "This year, when we're running the ball so effectively, I don't need to take as many chances as I did, say, last year, when we needed to move the ball through the air. I'm just trying to play mistake-free football."

Hoffman wasn't the only member of the Red and Blue to avoid mistakes on Saturday. The Penn offense ran an incredible 91 plays in New York, and did not turn the ball over even once.

The Lions had two turnovers, one of which was costly, especially since Columbia had no way to contain the Penn offense. The Quakers were forced to punt just once all afternoon.

"If you can think of it, let me know," Columbia coach Ray Tellier said when asked if there was anything the Lions could have done to stop the Penn attack.

Columbia found itself down 14-0 at halftime, but caught a break when Penn's Peter Veldman missed a 42-yard field goal to open the third quarter. The Lions marched down the field with a 12-play, 75-yard drive, and cut Penn's lead to 14-7 on an 18-yard touchdown pass from Jeff McCall to Jarel Cockburn.

Penn responded with Perskie's first touchdown of the day, putting Columbia back down by 14 points and in need of another quick score to stay close against the steamrolling Quakers attack. But Travis Chmelka fumbled the kickoff, and Brian Drake recovered to set up the Red and Blue at Columbia's 21.

So, with 3:23 left in the third quarter, the game was essentially over. Perskie scored again 2:17 later to put the game away. The third-quarter outburst was made possible by the fact that the Quakers cleaned up their act after eight first-half penalties. Penn committed just two infractions after the intermission.

Perskie was ostensibly playing because Ryan hurt his knee, but the senior back probably would have stayed in the game if the outcome had been in doubt. As it was, Ryan rushed for 126 yards on just 18 carries, an average of seven yards per attempt. One-third of his carries were for first downs; Penn registered 33 first downs on the day, and faced a third-down situation just 15 times.

Using Ryan, Perskie and Dondi Darby, the Penn offense controlled the ball for 37:11, including a ludicrous 32:09 out of 36 minutes in the last three quarters.

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