Football discovers solid replacement

An offensive line without a quality center is like a Tootsie Pop without the chewy middle - it has no substance.

Going into Saturday's game against Holy Cross, Penn's offensive line was that chewy-center-lacking lollipop.

Conspicuously absent from the Penn football team's lineup against the Crusaders was All-Ivy center Matt Dukes.

A knee injury suffered last week has likely put Dukes' solid Penn career on hold until next season. His absence breaks up the five-man unit from last year that the Quakers offense returned completely intact this year.

"We were excited coming into the season because we have all five returning starters on the offensive line," Penn senior tackle Jeff Hatch said. "As they say, the offensive line position is five players playing as one."

Without depth on the line, Dukes' injury could easily have made the line four players and a question mark.

Enter Mike Powers, a sophomore charged with the unenviable task of stepping in for the linchpin of the offensive line. By the end of the game, he was anything but a question mark and the unit was once again five playing as one.

There was, however, a bit of drama early on that might have suggested that contest might go less than smoothly.

Penn started with a first and goal early in the second quarter but promptly marched backwards. On first down, quarterback Gavin Hoffman took an exchange from Powers and fell in the backfield.

On the next play a bad shotgun snap from Powers got Hoffman creamed by the Holy Cross defense, and the line was penalized for a false start.

The next snap was also off and Hoffman was taken down again. The Red and Blue found themselves in an odd situation - punting on fourth and goal.

"Dukes got hurt a little bit in camp so I've been playing behind Powers for a while now," Hoffman said. "But we just haven't been in a lot of game situations and it's a timing issue. We're still feeling each other out."

Aside from those kinks, though, Penn's senior quarterback looked pretty comfortable behind his new snapper.

"We're not always on the same page, but it's not really a big deal because he's playing well and doing everything that we knew he could do," Hoffman said.

An important factor in Powers' success is the four experienced linemen that flank him. The Quakers' offensive line has been a constant in what has been an up-and-down offensive season thus far.

"We never seem to be in sync with everything that we're doing, so the challenge was to try to get [the offense] clicking," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "Our offensive line has been playing well all along so they just continued to play well."

As the game wore on Saturday, the Penn offense gained momentum and started to show off its considerable weapons. Senior running back Kris Ryan, after 30 yards rushing in the first quarter, exploded for 137 in the next two.

"If you punch them in the mouth and keep doing it all game, eventually they'll wear down," Hatch said.

When the dust cleared and Penn was on the better side of an absolute rout, it was obvious that the new edition in the middle hasn't caused the line to lose its bite.

"Mike Powers stepped in and did an excellent job," Hatch said. "Obviously we miss Dukes, but you can't take anything away from Powers because he is doing well."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.