LEWISBURG, Pa.- Marcello Trigg took the snap early in the second quarter likely already thinking he could have picked a better week for his first college start.
The Bucknell quarterback rolled left and looked for a receiver, but all he saw was Penn linebacker Joe Anastasio, who one quarter earlier had laid out Trigg just as he delivered a pass.
This time, he didn't even have a chance to get off the throw.
It went down as one of four sacks for the Quakers, who recorded 11 tackles for a loss on 60 Bucknell plays.
"The defense came out pretty motivated," Anastasio said. "We said that we wanted this to be a game where we made a statement of how well we can play.
"The first half, we made that statement."
While Robert Irvin and the Penn offense were rolling toward 311 first-half yards, the defense held Bucknell to 104. While the numbers were not much of a surprise, how the Bison gained their yardage was a bit of a deviation from the usual.
With top two quarterbacks Terrance Wilson and Andrew Lair injured, the freshman Trigg got the start, and with it came a bit of a shift in game plan. With Lair under center, the Bison threw the ball just four times in their spread option offense last week against Marist. They came into Saturday second in the nation in rushing.
But against Penn and its powerful front seven, including linebackers Kory Gedin and Anastasio, there needed to be some changes, and the result was 19 throws from the rookie.
"It was tough running," Bison coach Tim Landis said. "One of the strengths of their team is the front seven; they make no bones about that."
The 19 passes, of which 10 were completed for 125 yards and a touchdown, caught Penn a bit off guard.
"Going in, we expected running to be their No. 1 attack, and that's what we focused on most this week," Anastasio said.
"You don't have any film on him with the exception of two series against Marist," Quakers coach Al Bagnoli said of Trigg. "We don't know if the kid's a thrower, a runner, there's no film. We've been really spending the whole week because last week they threw the ball all of four times, trying to play run defense, and next thing you know, they throw 20 balls."
Still, it didn't seem to bother a first-string defense that only gave up 10 of the points before the second team came in. The addition of a passing game never really opened up the run game, as Bucknell averaged 2.2 yards per carry on the way to just 217 yards of total offense.
Of the 11 drives that Penn's first-string defense played, five ended in three-and-outs.
And while the unit will face tougher competition in the coming weeks, it enters the stretch of six straight Ivy League games on a roll.
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