Bulldogs’ freshman QB O’Connor has stellar debut

NEW HAVEN — As Reed Klubnik trotted onto the field for the Yale football team’s first offensive play on a blustery Saturday afternoon, he wasn’t quite sure how wide- eyed freshman quarterback Griffin O’Connor would handle his first collegiate game action.

Well before O’Connor completed his first pass in a convincing 46- 16 win over Brown, Klubnik and the rest of his teammates got their answer.

“We get out there on the first drive, we are huddling up and this guy cracks a joke to all of us so at point in the game we knew he was ready to roll,” said Klubnik, who had six receptions for 153 yards including touchdown catches of 60 and 11 yards.

JP Shohfi also had a pair of touchdown receptions, a 13- yarder early in the second quarter and a 6- yard grab in the first quarter where he made a highlight reel onehanded grab in the corner of the end zone.

By the time O’Connor left the game for the final time, he was 30 for 38 passing for 436 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions. If the game wasn’t such a one- sided affair, O’Connor probably would have had a chance to get the three additional yards necessary to break Alvin Cowan’s single- game Yale record with 438 passing yards. As it was, it was a debut for the ages for a player who did not play a snap in the Bulldogs’ first seven games of the season.

“I am very cautious with our freshmen quarterbacks because of the academic demands of Yale, I really don’t want to fast forward on quarterbacks too quickly freshman year because of that,” Yale coach Tony Reno said.

O’Connor threw for more than 7,000 yards with 73 touchdowns in his final three seasons at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, Calif., so he was no stranger of being asked to sit in the pocket and let the ball rip.