Defense to be tested by Brown QB Perry

NEW HAVEN — There are plenty of reasons for the members of the Yale defense to be feeling pretty good about themselves after posting their best performance of the 2019 season in a win over Columbia.

With all due respect to the Lions, the degree of difficulty is about to be raised significantly when Yale travels to meet Brown on Saturday.

Brown quarterback EJ Perry ranks second among Football Championship Subdivision players with an average of 351.3 yards of total offense per game. He has attempted and completed more passes than any other Ivy League quarterback this season so the Bulldogs know that this could be a challenging trip to Providence for Saturday’s 12:30 p.m. game.

“I use the word, ‘problem’ all the time and he is a problem,” Yale coach Tony Reno said. “He makes plays with his feet, he makes plays with his arm, he extends plays. He makes bad situations good for them because he has the ability to get out of trouble. What we need to do is to do our very best of running our scheme effectively to eliminate the opportunities he has to make plays.”

Perry, the nephew of firstyear Brown head coach James Perry, played in five games at Boston College in 2018, passing for 95 yards in a win over Holy Cross and 98 in a loss to No. 1 Clem

son. He also ran for a touchdown in a loss at Purdue.

Yale registered a seasonhigh four sacks against Columbia, with senior interior defensive linemen Spencer Matthaei and Tate Goodyear combining for 11⁄2 sacks and 21⁄2 tackles for loss. Defensive ends Sean Kissel and Reid Nickerson also had sacks in the game and facing a dangerous player like Perry, the play of the defensive line could be a huge factor.

“He is explosive, you have to stick to our contain and make sure you don’t get outside of your job,” Nickerson said. “The way a mobile quarterback can beat you is if you get outside of your framework, if you try to do too much that is where they are going to beat you. If everybody is focused in on what they can do, if they do their jobs, we should have success containing him.”

Perry also leads Brown with 554 rushing yards and the Bulldogs have had some issues maintaining the proper discipline when facing dualthreat quarterbacks at times this season.

Yale will not have the services of starting cornerback Malcolm Dixon for the first half after he was called for a targeting penalty in the second half against Colum

bia. The Bulldogs will begin the game shorthanded in the secondary facing a team that has nine players with at least one 20yard reception this season with seven Bears having at least 12 catches. So the ability of the defensive front to disrupt Perry’s timing could help slow down an explosive passing offense.

“The D line has really shifted our mindset a lot,” Nickerson said. “We got challenged often especially in the pass rush game, not exactly getting the numbers that we wanted. We really challenged ourselves and focused on having a different mindset, we get a lot of play action and not a lot of true dropback sets. At the beginning of the year we weren’t really thinking about that but as the year goes on, we’ve been changing our mindset. The coaches helped up develop a mindset to where we are going to attack no matter, we are going to identify the play action passes and go get the quarterback.”

Yale has thrown for 821 yards in wins over Penn and Columbia as the Bulldogs remaining a game out of first place in the Ivy League race. There could be more chances to make plays in the pass game facing a Brown defense that is last in Ivy League allowing 41.4 points per game as the Bears have given up six

more touchdowns and three more field goals than any other Ivy team, last in total defense and passing defense. The Bears’ depth chart lists two sophomores and four freshmen among the eight defensive backs. Yale seniors Reed Klubnik and JP Shohfi rank third and fifth in Yale history in career receiving yards so that is another match worth watching. Klubnik needs 108 yards to become Yale’s career leader in receiving yards.

CFPA WATCH LIST

Yale quarterback Kurt Rawlings and Central Connecticut State quarterback Aaron Winchester are among 34 players named to College Football Performance Awards FCS National Performer of the Year midseason watch list.

Rawlings has completed 63 percent of his passes for 1,884 yards with 12 touchdowns and five interceptions. He also has rushed for 204 yards and seven touchdowns.

Winchester has thrown for 1,918 yards and has completed 67 percent of his passes. He has 14 TD passes, three interceptions, 614 rushing yards and four TD runs.