The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
A winning identity
Grooms takes the reins at QB, leads Yale past Penn
NEW HAVEN — After Yale’s comeback fell just short at UConn last week, coach Tony Reno said sophomore quarterback Nolan Grooms distinguished himself from the second half of that game through a week of practice.
And when Grooms started for the first time on Saturday, he took charge.
Grooms had a fine day with his left arm and legs, taking a part in four touchdowns as the Bulldogs beat Penn 42-28 at Yale Bowl to get back to .500 and stay in the heart of the Ivy League race.
“Personally I didn’t feel like I played like that good of a game” against UConn, Grooms said, “but definitely you could feel us start to establish an identity.
“That was a big part coming into this game today, that we’ve got to establish an identity. The defense has been playing great all year. We just had to go out there today and do our part. I felt like we had a pretty good showing today.”
Grooms was 18-for-27 for 283 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. With senior running back Zane Dudek out with a leg injury he suffered against the Huskies, Grooms ran 16 times for 113 yards and two more scores. Long passes to Mason Tipton (five catches, 132 yards) and Chase Nenad set up other touchdowns.
“Nolan did a good job in his first full game. To say I didn’t expect it would be a lie,” said Reno, who became the sixth coach to win 50 games at Yale.
“After what he did in practice, taking control of the offense the way he did, I had a good feeling he was going to be in a good spot.”
Yale (3-3, 2-1 Ivy) never trailed. It led 21-7 and traded scores with the Quakers (2-4, 0-3) from there.
After Penn’s last touchdown, the Quakers’ Ryan Cragun recovered the onside kick. Clay Patterson sacked Penn freshman Aidan Sayin on two of the next three plays, and he had pressure on Sayin on the fourth-down incompletion that finished the job.
“There was an emphasis on a sense of urgency that had to happen, and it started right in Sunday practice,” Patterson said, “everyone bringing energy, everyone owning their role. If the guy next to you makes a play, you celebrate, because that could be you. It could be him . ... If he makes a play, that’s your play, too.” Attendance was 4,475. Princeton beat Harvard 18-16 in five overtimes and
is the only team still undefeated in Ivy play. Harvard, Dartmouth, Columbia and Yale are all 2-1, and Columbia, which knocked off Dartmouth 19-0 in New Hampshire on Friday, comes to the Bowl next week.
Grooms had come in for certain plays in the first couple of weeks of the season, and he took over from starter Griffin O’Connor in the second quarter of a shutout win at Lehigh in Week 3.
He got the reins at halftime down 14-0 last week after O’Connor had thrown three interceptions, and Grooms helped the Bulldogs outscore UConn 15-7 in the second half.
“Griffin is an extraordinary player and a huge part of this team,” Reno said. “We just felt Nolan gave us a better chance to do what we wanted to do offensively.”
At halftime, Yale had outgained the Quakers 243-124 at halftime. The officials had moved the ball 132 yards: both teams had an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty, pass-interference calls extended drives both ways, and Penn lost linebacker Jonathan Melvin to a targeting call.
The penalties, at least, settled down in the second half, and Yale finished off a win it needed.
“We grew a lot in the last week, from when we walked off that field in East Hartford to today,” Reno said, first crediting captain John Dean and the seniors, then extending that to the whole team.
“We grew a lot on Sunday. It was very reflective on where we needed to go to get where we wanted to be.”