Some thoughts following Penn's 59-28 win over Georgetown Saturday:
1. Anchor(ed) Down: Say what you will about the defense, and we will, but a team which does not successfully run the ball is a team that does not win.
Enter the 115th ranked Georgetown Hoyas, featuring a senior and a fifth year graduate student, with 82 yards per game. Excepting the Marist game, that number drops to just 54.2 yards a game, which would rank 122nd of 123 teams. This is not a knock on the players in the backfield, because by year four or five they're doing their best work, or an offensive line which is comprised of one junior, three seniors, and a fifth year. Not an underclassmen to be found. And what does it say about 2023 when the one returning member of the depth chart, current junior Shane Stewart, has just 48 yards this season?
This is a recruiting problem, though not a new one. Georgetown hasn't had an impact RB in years and has only had one 1,000 yard rusher in school history. Runners are hard to come by at Georgetown, more so when you're competing against six scholarship teams. Since 2005, only one GU player is even in the top 10 in school records for carries or yards in a season, and Joel Kimpela's 5.2 yard average in 2014 would be a full yard per carry better than any of this year's totals. The Hoyas had higher hopes for sophomore Naieem Kearney, but he hasn't seen action this season. Mason Gudger's two kickoff returns brought the Hoyas as much publicity as they've received all season, but at 5-9, 175, he has three yards on two carries and may be better suited for kickoffs than the trenches. And after Stewart, that's it for the bench. Impact positions like rushing are in demand, and Georgetown is not a destination.
The Hoyas' next two opponents each rank in the top third in FCS rushing defense, so expect more of the same.
2. Defensively Challenged: Followers of FCS football could be forgiven for seeing Fordham put up 59 on the Hoyas, well, they seem to put up that many on everyone. Few could have guessed a Penn team averaging a more modest 20.0 a game to torch the Georgetown defense a week later. The Quakers averaged 97 yards a game on the ground entering the game and picked up 187; an average of 227 yards in the air prior to Saturday netted 274.
Field position was important: in its first ten possessions, Penn started, on average,. at the Georgetown 48. That doesn't excuse the fact that, with just eight first downs after halftime, Penn scored five consecutive touchdowns, and only two drives were more than seven plays.
The defense isn't very good, and that's concerning for the second half of the season with more traditional offenses like Colgate and Lafayette that will grind on the Hoyas defensively. Georgetown has given up an average of 51 points a game versus its last four opponents.
Yes, more scoring by the Hoyas would have helped--its second half points all came from Gudger's kickoffs, but would it have mattered? Without focused defense play up front, it's more of the same.
3. Remember That Name: This item from the Penn media notes, one reported on the ESPN+ broadcast: WR Malone Howley's father "played basketball at Georgetown from 1985-89."
Really, four years? Did someone check this?
Well, let's do so: his father Chris Howley graduated from Georgetown with a BSBA in 1989. But if he played basketball, it was at Yates. He's mentioned four times in the HOYA over four years, but each for intramural ball. "Point guard Tim Fording should rack up assists as he dishes off to forwards Ed Grefenstette, Chris Howley and football QB Matt Zebrowski," it wrote in 1986, and none of those ever saw the floor at Capital Centre.
In 1988, Howley scored seven first half points as his team made it to the finals of the Early Bird Basketball Tournament at Yates, for what it's worth. But he wasn't on the varsity, period. Malone's grandfather Dan Howley (B'65) also was a Hoya, and he didn't play basketball either.
4. Around The PL: At the halfway point, all signs point to the Holy Cross-Fordham game on October 29 as the league title game, while the other five schools are a combined 5-23.
Fordham 40, Lehigh 28: The Engineers gave it a run but Tim DeMorat was just too good: 26-for-37 for 499 yards and four touchdowns. This week: Fordham hosts Stony Brook (0-5), Lehigh is at Cornell (2-2).
Princeton 23, Lafayette 2: The last time the Leopards were held to two points in a game was 1975, and it probably felt like the 1970's on Saturday. The Leopards had a total of yards at halftime, 206 yards for the game, but never crossed the Tigers' 20. This week: The Leopards are off this week.
Holy Cross 57, Bucknell 0: It could have been worse. The Crusaders outagained the Bison 511-160, rushed 50 times for 314 yards, and collected turnovers on three of Bucknell's final five possessions. Bucknell allowed scores on each of HC's first eight possessions. This week: Holy Cross is off , while the winless Bison travel to Yale.
