Penn football falls in season opener to Delaware in close game

NEWARK, DEL. — New year, new team, but it was more of the same old, same old for Penn football in its season opener as the team found itself, once again, on the wrong end of a one-score game.

“There is no victory in that,” coach Ray Priore said. “ [But] it shows you what the standard of play we are capable of doing … we gotta get better. The emotion was right there. We made some key plays. They were focused. We just got to take off a little bit of a little bit of rust, and we'll be okay.”

Penn (0-1) started off the game as crisply as the all-white uniforms the players were wearing. After Delaware (3-0) won the coin toss and elected to defer the kick, the Quaker offense picked up where it left off. As expected, reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year sophomore running back Malachi Hosley was the first to touch the ball. 

For his first completed pass of the season, senior quarterback Aidan Sayin moved the chains with an 11-yard strike to junior wide receiver Bisi Owens. For his second pass attempt, Sayin was able to connect with junior wide receiver Jared Richardson for the first of many passes. 

Against a unit that hadn’t given up an offensive touchdown in its previous outing, the Red and Blue moved down the field with ease. The drive culminated with Sayin finding none other than Richardson on a fade route to put up the team’s first points of the season after initially missing on a similar throw just a few plays prior. 

One of Delaware’s strengths in its first two games was the ability of the receiving corps to generate yards after a catch. Blue Hens wide receiver Max Patterson continued this trend as he made several Penn defenders miss on a 26-yard catch to give his team life. Ultimately, the Quakers caught a lucky break when Patterson couldn’t haul in the toss from quarterback Ryan O’Connor on fourth and one. 

Hosley came in ready to prove that his rookie year wasn’t a fluke, and with his first run of the second quarter, he announced his presence with a 43-yard rip. Hosley would go on to finish the game with 176 yards. 

“We might have lost the game, but I think we won the test,” Hosley said. “[This game] was good for us and building momentum going into the Ivy League. I know it's a lot of pressure with me coming off a great year. I just wanted to build off of that.”

Delaware was finally able to work things out on offense with O’Connor connecting with wide receiver Phil Lutz on fourth and long for Lutz’s first touchdown of the night. Penn responded with an efficient two-minute drill that ended with Owens climbing the ladder to give the Quakers a 10-point lead heading into the halftime break. 

Having blown out the teams in its previous two games, it wasn’t a question of if Delaware would explode offensively, it was when. It didn’t take long for O’Connor to connect with Lutz on a 39-yard feed to bring the Blue Hens within one score of Penn. And while Delaware found its groove, the Red and Blue’s offense stalled. 

The Quakers closed out the third quarter without scoring any points. While the Blue Hens made a field goal to bring them within one, Penn missed one of its own at the other end of the field after a false start call on junior kicker Sam Smith pushed the attempt back by five yards. 

Delaware wasn’t going to wait around for Penn to figure things out. Less than three minutes into the fourth quarter, wide receiver Jake Thaw caught his first career touchdown to give Delaware the lead. Despite Sayin’s newfound struggles with hitting his open receivers, a blocked punt by junior defensive back Francesco Barone set the offense up with a short field. A sliding catch from senior wide receiver Julien “Juice” Stokes at the one-yard line set Sayin up to run it in for the score.

With just under two minutes to go, Delaware running back Jo'Nathan Silver ran untouched into the endzone to put the Blue Hens up by seven. On the first play after the kickoff, Richardson came up clutch with a 55-yard catch and run, but it was ultimately for nought as Sayin recorded his second interception of the night to seal the loss. 

“Bad ball,” Sayin said. “That's all on me. And, you know, crazy stuff happens in football.”

Once again, Penn found itself at the wrong end of a one-score game. But the game proved that Penn can keep up with programs that — on paper — appear much stronger. 

“We had a lot of first-game mistakes there,” Priore said. “But you make your greatest improvement as a football team between week one and week two. We're really expecting that to happen this week.”

The team will be looking to build on this momentum heading into its second game against Colgate on Sept. 28 at 1 p.m. The game will also be the Red and Blue’s first this season at Franklin Field.