Penn Upsets Harvard Football, 30-21, To Reclaim Ivy Title

PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—The Ivy League football championship is headed back to Philadelphia.

By successfully neutralizing Harvard's greatest strengths on Saturday, Penn did what it could not do in the de facto Ancient Eight title game a year ago and earned itself at least a share of the league championship with a 30-21 win at Franklin Field.

In many ways, the result of the contest was a tale of the two offensive lines.

Penn’s blocking dominated a Harvard front four that came into the contest leading the FCS in run defense and sacks per game. The Quakers rushed for 234 yards on the afternoon while the Crimson failed to record a sack for the first time all season.

Meanwhile, Harvard’s offensive line lost senior starting center Jack Holuba to injury and left senior quarterback Colton Chapple under heavy pressure all day. The swarming Penn pass rush hit its peak with three consecutive sacks on the Crimson's final drive, including a game-clinching safety.

Harvard (7-2, 4-2 Ivy) came into the contest as a heavy favorite but now will need to beat Yale and hope Penn (5-4, 5-1) loses next weekend at Cornell to earn a championship share of its own. With the victory, the Quakers became the first team with four losses to earn at least a share of the Ancient Eight championship since Dartmouth in 1982.

"This was a terrific team victory against a terrific program," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "We have the greatest respect for Harvard.... When you can win against them, you know you've accomplished something."

The Quakers lost starting quarterback Billy Ragone to a dislocated ankle and scored just nine points in the second half, but that turned out to be enough, as their defense shut down the nation’s fourth-highest-powered offense over the final two quarters. The Crimson finished the game just 4 of 13 on third down, and Chapple threw two interceptions for the first time this season.

"Penn was tremendously physical all day," senior tight end Kyle Juszczyk said. "All the credit has to go to them. We didn't execute."

Meanwhile, Ragone shredded the Crimson defense with his arm and legs, throwing for two touchdowns and rushing for 96 yards and a score before getting knocked out. Quakers halfback Lyle Marsh also had a big game, collecting a career-high 133 yards on 27 carries.

"We're not used to people running the ball on us," Crimson coach Tim Murphy said. "That certainly had a huge impact on the game—[Penn] being able to run the football and keep us off-balance with the play-action pass."

The victory marked the culmination of a significant turnaround for Penn, which started the season 2-4, including a loss to league bottom-dweller Yale. But the Quakers have run off an increasingly impressive series of wins over the past three weeks, beating Brown, Princeton, and finally Harvard to reclaim a share of the title it won in 2009 and 2010 but surrendered to the Crimson in a 37-20 loss at Harvard Stadium in the season's penultimate week a year ago.

"We found our identity at the right time," Bagnoli said. "We kind of lost our way, [but] ever since then I think we've gotten closer to playing the way we are structured to play."

Neither team scored in the third quarter, and the squads traded touchdowns in the fourth.

Just 57 seconds into the final period, Penn backup quarterback Andrew Holland threw an 18-yard touchdown pass to tight end Mitchell King, who was able to wrestle a jump ball away from junior safety Chris Splinter to put the Quakers up two scores—Harvard's largest deficit of the season.

"Andrew put it in a terrific spot for [King], and he went up and got it," Bagnoli said. "It was a pretty athletic play...and it gave us a bit of breathing room. We knew that wasn't going to be the end of it, but certainly it was nice to have a two-touchdown lead."

Harvard answered right back on its next drive, as Chapple capped an eight-play, 64-yard series—highlighted by a 31-yard third-down completion to Cameron Brate—with a one-yard touchdown pass to Juszczyk.

The Crimson offense could go nowhere on its next two drives, but the defense held its own against a conservative Quaker offense, which let Holland throw just twice. On a third and three from the Crimson 44, senior defensive end John Lyon stuffed the Penn QB to get Harvard ball back.

With 2:29 to go, the Crimson took over at its own 11-yard line needing a touchdown to tie. But Chapple was sacked on three consecutive plays, the final one coming as Brandon Copeland brought down the quarterback in the end zone to seal the Penn victory.

"The D-Line had a great game today," Copeland said. "They pushed [Chapple] right into me. I just had to wrap my arms around him."

In the first half, the Crimson was plagued by a number of defensive miscues that led to multiple big plays for the Quakers.

Penn got on the board just 2:45 into the game, when on third and nine, Conner Scott got open behind two Crimson defenders on a deep seam route for a 32-yard score.

But on the Quakers’ next possession, junior safety Chris Splinter intercepted Ragone, and Chapple then led a six-play, 49-yard drive that he capped with a four-yard touchdown run off play-action to tie things up.

Penn answered right back on its ensuing drive, largely thanks to a 47-yard scamper by Marsh. Later in the series, the Quakers caught a break when a third and four Ragone pass was deflected and ended up right in the hands of receiver Brian Mitchell at the Harvard two. Two plays later, Ragone took it into the right corner of the end zone on a bootleg to put Penn up, 14-7.

"Ragone had a tremendous game," Murphy said. "He [displayed] great leadership, showed who he is.... He had us off-balance."

Early in the second quarter, Chapple led an eight-play, 72-yard drive in 3:48 to tie the game again. In the series, the senior completed passes of 26 and 25 yards to Juszczyk and wideout Andrew Fischer gained 15 yards on a reverse before senior running back Treavor Scales scored his 12th touchdown of the year from a yard out.

But later in the half, the Quakers regained the lead, with Ragone collecting 27 total rushing yards on consecutive plays. The quarterback capped the 11-play, 84-yard drive by running play-action, rolling left, and, under heavy pressure, hitting Ryan O’Malley for a two-yard touchdown to put the Quakers up, 21-14, before the break.

"[Our kids have] been challenged all week and I'm not really sure how many people gave them a chance," Bagoni said. "They were pretty focused and pretty determined and they wanted to prove that they belonged on that field, and I think they did.... We were just not to be denied."

—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.