The Yale football team (3-2, 2-0 Ivy), which finished off its non-league portion of the season last week, begins the Ivy stretch run this Saturday at Franklin Field. The Bulldogs and defending league champion Penn (3-2, 2-0) have a noon kickoff in Philadelphia that airs live on Versus TV and can be heard on WELI (960 AM, 960weli.com) Radio.
Yale leads the series against the Quakers 44-33-1, though Penn has won 15 of the last 19 meetings. The Blue has won every contest when scoring over 21 points except for a 48-30 Penn victory in 1972 and 2003's 34-31 OT decision. Three of the last eight meetings have gone to OT.
The Bulldogs, looking for their first road win of 2011, are also looking for the first win in the state of Pennsylvania in three attempts this fall when a pair of 3-2 (2-0 Ivy) teams square off to see who can stay atop the league standings. On paper, the offenses are producing similar numbers while Penn's defense has been stingier. Both squads beat Dartmouth and lost to Lafayette in different places.
Junior WRChris Smith(Midlothian, Va.) had 281 all-purpose yards and a 50-yard TD reception, but it wasn't enough in Lafayette's 28-19 win at Fisher Stadium. Yale had 361 yards of total offense but had the ball for 13 fewer minutes. Smith had a career-high seven catches for 174 yards and ran back five kickoffs for 107 more, while the Bulldogs played from behind almost the entire game. Senior RBAlex Thomas(Ansonia, Conn.) led the visitors with 65 rushing yards. On a day their team had three QB sacks, seniors LBWes Moyer(Alameda, Calif.) and CBDrew Baldwin(Alexandria, Va.) led the Elis with five solo tackles each. Lafayette QB Andrew Shoop completed 17 of 21 passes with two TDs while his counterpart, seniorPatrick Witt(Wylie, Texas) was 18-for-40 with 270 yards and a pair of scores, including a 10-yard toss to sophomore FBElijah Thomas(Rochester, N.Y.).
Billy Ragone completed 18 of 31 passes for 185 yards, but it was his feet that got Penn a 27-20 win at Columbia. The junior QB from Cheshire, Conn., scored twice running the ball including the game-winner with 25 seconds left. He threw a TD pass with under a minute left at Hanover two weeks earlier to engineer a comeback win over Dartmouth. Three different Quakers picked off Columbia passes while Penn PK Connor Loftus connected on two field goals.
Penn held off a late Yale comeback in a battle of Ivy unbeatens last October at Yale Bowl that ended 27-20. The Bulldogs got 331 passing yards from QB Patrick Witt, including a pair of touchdowns, but the Quakers had one score set up by an interception and also got a 53-yard punt return for a touchdown. Yale had the edge in total offense (360 to 308) but could not overcome some crucial missteps.
2007: Yale's goal-line stand followed a TD run by Mike McLeod '09 in the third OT of an Eli win, the first for the Blue at Penn since 1900… 2006: Alan Kimball's '08 35-yard field goal in OT gave Yale a 17-14 victory at New Haven... 2003: Playing its first modern OT game, Yale fell to Penn at Franklin Field (34-31) after erasing a 31-10 deficit. The Blue tied the game with 32 seconds left but had a FG attempt blocked in the extra session... 1991: Nick Crawford '92 rushed for a Yale QB record 204 yards in a 31-12 Bulldog win at New Haven... 1987: WR Bob Shoop '88 (currently Vanderbilt's defensive coordinator) capped off a miraculous comeback at Yale Bowl with a last-second TD reception in a 28-22 Yale victory... 1969: Jack Ford `72 (provides color for Yale on YES games) intercepted a Penn pass and went 77 yards for a score in a 21-3 Yale win... 1958: Herb Hallas '59 set a school record with a 94-yard punt return, but it was the only points in a 30-6 Quaker win.
In the only two league clashes, Brown blanked Princeton 34-0 and Penn edged Columbia 27-20. The Ivies won one of four games against Patriot teams: Holy Cross beat Dartmouth 25-17, Colgate slipped past Cornell 35-28 in OT and Harvard bashed Bucknell 42-3.
Brown at Cornell; Columbia at Dartmouth; Harvard at Princeton.
The Bulldogs rank third in both scoring offense and defense among Ivy squads. Yale has thrown the ball 167 times while running it on 156 plays.
Yale finished 1-2 against Patriot League opponents this fall, beating Georgetown (5-2) and falling at Lehigh (6-1) and Lafayette (2-4).
Senior DTJake Stoller(Shaker Heights, Ohio) leads Yale with four sacks this fall. He had 1.5 last week and is the top tackler (9) among Bulldog defensive linemen.
Sophomore DBChris Brady(Wayne, NJ) had the best hit of the game against Lafayette. Midway through the second quarter, on a perfect form tackle, he knocked the helmet off a receiver who had a made a catch over the middle.
Most did it in high school, but none of the current Bulldogs had played a night game since coming to Yale until last week. The last Yale football night game was at San Diego in 1999.
Junior WR Chris Smith (Midlothian, Va.) earned the College Football Performance Awards National FCS Wide Receiver of the Week Honor with a career-high seven catches for 174 yards and one score. He also returned kickoffs for another 107 yards. He is the only Ivy player with three 100-yard receiving days this fall. Smith, the first player in Ivy history to run back a pair of kickoffs for TDs in the same game (last year at Brown, span of 2:23), ranks second in Yale career KOR yards with 1,301, which is 100 yards shy of Robert Carr '05. His 732 yards in 2010 are a single-season record. Smith is also the only Yale player with two career kickoff returns for TDs. He is also four catches shy of making the school's career top 10.
174 receiving yards vs. Lafayette (most in Ivy 2011)
Senior QB Patrick Witt (Wylie, Texas), a two-time Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week this season, is now Yale's career leader with 448 completions. He was a 2010 second-team All-Ivy selection who led the league in passing yards (2,216), yards/game (246.2), completions (212) and attempts (351) and was the only QB to complete more than 60% of his passes (60.4%). Witt, the largest starting signal caller in the Ivy League, was seventh in the FCS in completions/game (23.56) and 15th nationally in passing yards/game (246.22) last year. Elected to the team's Leadership Council, Witt became the first transfer (Nebraska) student at Yale to start immediately at QB since World War II (when transfers were common). He is also an outstanding student (3.91 GPA) who has written for the Yale Daily News, is a member of the Intercultural Affairs Council and has done some prison ministry work. Witt, Yale's candidate for National Football Foundation & Hall of Fame Scholar-Athlete honors and the Campbell Trophy, has been endorsed by his school as a 2011 Rhodes Scholar candidate and a Mitchell Scholarship candidate. He also won the Francis Gordon Brown Prize, one of the school's highest undergraduate accolades, awarded to the student in the junior class in Yale College who most closely approaches the standards of intellectual ability, high manhood, capacity for leadership and service to the University set by Francis Gordon Brown, who captained Yale Football's "Team of the Century" in 1900.
As expected, senior captainJordan Haynes(Folsom, Calif.) has been all over the field this year and is fourth among Ivy players with 9.0 tackles per game. Last year he led (102) the Elis and was second among Ivy players in tackles from his linebacker position. The 2010 first-team All-Ivy and All-New England pick represented the West as a National Football Foundation High School Scholar-Athlete. He is the first Yale captain from the Golden State since Thorne Shugart (Los Angeles) led the 1954 Bulldogs.
Senior WRGio Christodoulou(Miami, Fla.), the Oct. 10 Ivy League Special Teams Player of the Week after returning four punts for 106 yards in the win over Dartmouth, is atop the school's career punt return yardage list with 831. That also makes him the NCAA's active career leader. He currently leads the Ivies with a 14.1 average, while his 106 return yards vs. Dartmouth are the most for an Ivy player this fall. Christodoulou is in the mix of talented receivers getting snaps but only has two catches this fall after having 38 for a team-best 563 yards last fall. He came back to Yale this fall using a medical hardship waiver from 2009. He also has 23 kickoff returns for 553 yards (shy of 10th on career list).
Alex Thomas (Ansonia, Conn.), nicknamed "Train," is Yale's active career rushing leader with 1,390 yards and six 100-yard games. His career-high is 137 (best day for a Yalie in 2010) yards on 19 runs (7.2), including a 42-yard TD, against Columbia. He is also Yale's active career receiving leader (49) among the RBs. His 47-yard run at Cornell in 2010 was the longest run by a Bulldog last fall, while his 74-yard TD scamper vs. Dartmouth is the longest this season in the league. Thomas, a former Ansonia High School star, is the most prolific (8,279 yards, 114 TDs) runner in Connecticut High School history. The nickname stems from his "train" tattoo, a word based on scripture verses that refer to training both physically and spiritually.
Deon Randall(San Diego, Calif.) is listed as a RB on the Yale roster and a WR on the depth chart, but you could see him lining up at any skill spot. He leads the team with 23 catches while his 250 yards are second best. Randall's first collegiate TD came on a pass play and a scary collision over the middle at Lehigh.
Senior FSGeoff Dunham(Dallas, Texas) is third on the squad with 34 tackles. One of the largest DBs in the Ivy League at 6-foot-3, 223 pounds, he started every game last year and was third on the team with 31 solo tackles and 47 overall. His best day was 7-2-9 vs. Penn in 2010, and he scored the first TD of his football career on a fumble return against Princeton. He also had 7-2-9 against Cornell this fall. A biomedical engineering major, Dunham interned in cancer research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 2007 and 2008 and spent some of a summer at Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla., doing the same thing. He stayed on the Yale campus last summer to take an organic chemistry class.
DEAustin Pulsipher(Temecula, Calif.) has accomplished more than the average college senior. After playing on the 2006 JV team, he spent two full years (2007, 2008) in greater Taipei, Taiwan on a Mormon mission where he became fluent in Mandarin Chinese and served in many leadership roles. Pulsipher, whose father played football at BYU, organized and taught a drug rehabilitation program while managing the finances of over 150 missionaries. He is also the only married member of the Yale football team; he arrived a few days late for football this summer because of the wedding (Aug. 13th in Newport Beach, Calif.). Sebastian Swett '09 was one of the groomsmen and the honeymoon was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Pulsipher, 23, the oldest player on the roster, is looking for his second varsity letter this fall. He is the only Bulldog with an Ivy League Championship (2006) ring.
The left side of the offensive line includes sophomore TWes Gavin(San Diego, Calif., 6-5, 275) and GColin Kruger(Sarasota, Fla., 6-3, 300). G Gabe Fernandez (Honolulu, HI, 6-0, 273) and TRoy Collins(Carbondale, Ill., 6-5, 260) are on the right.John Oppenheimer(Menlo Park, Calif., 6-0, 265) played DT as a freshman last fall before switching to center in the spring.
They don't want their names called on the PA system on game days, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve recognition. Here are some notes about Yale's starting five offensive trench guys. LT Wes Gavin's father, Bob, ran the two-mile event at the Missouri High School State Championships and the marathon during the 1975 Kansas Relays. He and his wife are under 5-foot-8. Their son was named scholar-athlete by the San Diego chapter of the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame while also throwing the shot and discus in high school. He had offers from SDSU, Portland State, the military academies and the rest of the Ivy League … LG Colin Kruger, who might be the strongest guy on the team, had had offers to play at other FCS schools including Stanford… RG Gabe Fernandez, a mechanical engineering major who transferred from UCLA after his first year, was a very good soccer player in high school. His senior year's soccer team won the DII state title before he gained 30 to 40 pounds for football. His brother played offensive guard at Harvard… C John Oppenheimer, who moved over from the defense last spring, played both sides of the line in high school. His father, Peter Oppenheimer, is Apple's senior vice president and Chief Financial Officer… RT Roy Collins, who was a prep star at Choate Rosemary Hall, came to Yale as a TE. He was in the New Haven chapter of the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame. His first cousin, Gerome Sapp, played at Notre Dame and then with the Colts and the Ravens (2003-2007). His mother's cousin, Burgess Owens, played at the University of Miami and with the Jets and Raiders (1973-1982).
Junior PKPhilippe Panico(pronounced pa-NEE-ko) is 4-for-7 on field goals, including a career-long, 39-yarder against the Hoyas and the Big Green, and is 14-for-17 on PATs. The Boston native connected on 17 of 18 PATs and six of 14 field goals in his first year of varsity kicking in 2010. His three-pointer with no time left at Dartmouth was the game-winner, while his 36-yard boot in the fourth quarter at Brown gave the Elis a three-point win. Panico, who had a 47-yard FG in the 2011 pre-season scrimmage, also swings a golf club well, playing for the Yale team as a freshman and leading his foursome to the lowest score at Yale Football Association Golf Outing in August. He had his photo taken with 2011 U.S. Open Champion Rory Mcllroy when the Yale team was at this year's New Haven Open tennis tournament.
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