Penn 'D' quaking about Harvard WR

The Penn football team has some of the greatest offensive weapons around, but the most explosive force of all will be lining up for Harvard on Saturday.

Last year, though admittedly without all of the ESPN fanfare, undefeated Penn visited undefeated Harvard in the penultimate week of the season. And the reason that Harvard won the game, 28-21, and thus clinched the Ivy championship can be summed up in two words.

Carl Morris.

He was the difference. He was the one who shrugged off tackles and broke big plays against Penn on Nov. 10, 2001, and subsequently haunted the Quakers in their nightmares.

The Harvard wide receiver scored two touchdowns -- one from 20 yards out and one from 62 -- that day and is capping off his career with a tremendous senior season.

He's a candidate for the Walter Payton Award, the accolade which is presented to Division I-AA's top overall player.

"I haven't played against anyone like him," Penn senior linebacker Steve Lhotak said. "He's real smooth, real fast and makes real good cuts.

"He's head and shoulders above everyone else in the league."

Lhotak also indicated that Morris might be the best receiver in all of Division I-AA football, and Penn coach Al Bagnoli offered similar praise.

"He's arguably the best kid in the league at any position, so certainly he presents a major challenge to us," Bagnoli said.

Morris' numbers tell a good part of the story.

This year, in eight games, he has caught 83 passes for 1166 yards. On a high-powered offense, Morris has been responsible for nearly half of Harvard's total receptions and well more than half of its receiving yardage.

He has averaged 145.8 yards per game, has a long play of 60 yards this season and has caught eight touchdowns passes. No other Crimson player has more than two.

Penn has all-but-given up on trying to stop Morris. But that doesn't mean they can't slow down the Payton candidate.

"Nobody's stopped him, so you can't think you're going to in there and stop him cold and he'll get no catches, or two catches for 20 yards," Bagnoli said. "But you have to try to stop the big play. We didn't do that last year."

Penn safety Vince Alexander agreed that limiting Morris to small or moderate gains is of utmost importance.

"The biggest thing we took out of last year's game is that we can't let up the big play," Alexander said. "He made a couple very big plays against us and we know where we made the mistakes, so we'll make sure they don't happen again."

Though Penn's defense is poised for a classic matchup with the dynamic Morris, the Quakers are not planning on making any unusual adjustments for him.

After all, what the Ivy's top-scoring (15.4 points per game) and total defense (281.1 yards per game) has been doing has been working rather well.

"I don't know if we're really going to change things up all that much," Lhotak said. "We've been having success against everyone else in the league."

If Penn is to clinch a share of the Ivy crown on Saturday, it must do so by slowing down a wideout who may one day be sharing in the riches of an NFL paycheck.

Yet to limit Morris in any way would be a certain moral victory for the Quakers' defense -- one which would be especially sweet in a Penn triumph.

After all, he is just two games off of a 21-catch, 257-yard performance against Dartmouth.

Morris "has got everything you'd want in a wide receiver," Bagnoli said. "He's a legitimate NFL draft choice."

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