Football Drops 31-10 Decision to Yale Under Friday Night Lights

241013 University of Pennsylvania - Football vs Yale

Winner

Yale
YAL

4-2 , 1-2

Penn
PEN

2-4 , 0-3

Winner

Score By Quarters
Team	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	F
YAL Yale	14	7	7	3	31
PEN Penn	0	10	0	0	10

Game Recap: Football | October 25, 2024

PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania football team dropped a 31-10 decision to Yale in an Ivy League game played Friday night at Franklin Field. The game aired to a national TV audience on ESPNU.

Penn fell to 2-4 overall and remains winless in Ivy League play at 0-3. Yale won for the first time in Ivy play (1-2) and improved to 4-2 overall.

Quaker Notemeal
*This will appear later tonight

How It Happened
Yale wasted little time putting points on the board Friday night, receiving the opening kickoff and immediately driving down the field to paydirt. The Bulldogs needed 11 plays to cover 75 yards and got their points when Grant Jordan looked left and found David Pantelis for a 3-yard touchdown pass.

Penn went three-and-out on its opening drive, but got an immediate break when Pantelis tried to handle Albert Jang’s line-drive punt as it bounced toward him. The ball flew past him and was recovered by Jacob Cisneros, giving the Quakers the ball on Yale’s 16-yard line. However, on the very first play from scrimmage Abu Kamara forced Sayin to fumble and Kevin Jourdain recovered to give Yale the ball right back.

Having gotten the momentum back, Yale ran roughshod through Penn’s defense. The Bulldogs ran five plays and gained first downs on all of them, the last going for 19 yards as Jordan found Chase Nenad up the middle and he bulled the final few yards through a pair of Quaker defenders into the end zone. That made the score 14-0 midway through the first.

Penn went to Liam O’Brien at quarterback on its next drive, and the junior moved the Quakers to their first points early in the second quarter when they got the ball down to Yale’s 8-yard line before stalling. Sam Smith kicked a 25-yard field goal to make the score 14-3.

Yale found success passing to the right sideline a few times on its next drive, but the Bulldogs went that way one too many times and Josh Narcisse easily picked off Jordan at the Yale 6. He returned the ball nearly to midfield, but O’Brien was sacked on first down and Penn went three-and-out. Jang’s punt was a beauty, however, and good hustle by Jayden Drayton allowed the Quakers to down the ball inside Yale’s 5.

Yale went three-and-out, and Penn got the ball into Bulldogs territory. The Quakers had fourth-and-1 and tried some trickery, but Yale’s defense sniffed it out and Kamara intercepted O’Brien’s desperation throw into traffic right at the line of scrimmage.

Yale turned the turnover into another touchdown. The Bulldogs needed six plays to go 60 yards, a good chunk of them coming when Jordan flung a pass down the right sideline that was just out of reach of a Penn defender before being caught by a diving Pantelis. Three plays later, the Yale QB rolled out of trouble to his left and fired a pass that was caught by a diving Joey Felton—the catch was upheld after a review—for a 20-yard score that pushed Yale in front, 21-3.

Penn had 2:44 left in the half to make something happen. The Quakers only needed two minutes, driving 71 yards on just five plays that started with O’Brien finding Stokes for 12 yards and Alex Haight for 19. The junior QB called his own number on the final two plays, the first going for 12 yards and the second covering the final five yards over the goal line. Yale’s lead was 21-10 at the break.

Penn started the second half with the ball but sputtered at midfield and punted. Yale’s first drive was far more successful, the Bulldogs going 77 yards on nine plays. On fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line, Jordan rolled to the right to escape a pair of Penn defenders and found a wide open Luke Foster in the back of the end zone for the score to make it 28-10.

Penn looked like it might answer, driving all the way to Yale’s 1-yard line on first-and-goal. However, three straight rushes were stuffed and the Bulldogs took over on downs at the end of the third quarter.

Yale covered nearly all of the 99 yards on the ensuing drive, Penn finally stopping the Bulldogs four yards short of paydirt and forcing a 21-yard field goal that was good. The drive took nearly seven minutes off the clock, though, and less than nine minutes remained with Yale up, 31-10.

That proved to be all the scoring on the night as the Bulldogs kept Penn at bay the rest of the way.

Up Next
Penn is on the road for the next two games, starting next Saturday when the Quakers are in Providence to face Brown in another Ivy League game. Kickoff is scheduled for noon.