Yale's Diana Punctures Brown Defense; Penn, Dartmouth Score Opening Wins

Yale's Rich Diana keeps coming at opposing defenses until he finds a crack in the line he can exploit.

Diana won't be coming at Harvard's defense until The Game late in November, but while football coaches tend to take "one game at a time," Joe Restic must already have a corner of his cranium reserved for ways to stop the Eli steamroller.

Saturday, Diana rambled for 196 yards on the ground, including touchdown scampers of 18, 35 and 80 yards, to lead the Bulldogs past Brown in the Yale Bowl, 28-7.

School Record

His rushing total set a new school record, and Yale has had some semi-tough halfbacks in its time--Albie Booth, Calvin Hill and Dick Jauron.

Everybody's pre-season Ivy favorite, Yale faces the pressure that accompanies a sterling reputation. But with the likes of Diana, quarterback John Rogan and split end Curtis Grieve, the Elis figure to sweep through the league with ease--until The Game, when other factors come into play.

Happy Debut

Penn head coach Jerry Berndt rode the arm of Gary Vura and the hands of Karl Hall to a 29-22 victory over Cornell in his debut as Quaker coach.

Vura connected with Hall for touchdown bombs of 93, 84 and 40 yards, the last two bringing the Quakers back from a 22-14 disadvantage to seal the win.

Cornell actually held a 22-7 lead in the third quarter, by Bob Blackman's Big Red charges buckled under Penn's passing attack. Blackman, the second winningest NCAA coach behind Bear Bryant, has a squad devastated by graduation this season.

Last-gasp futile

But Cornell still mustered a last-gasp comeback, driving down to the Penn goalline as time ran out. Big Red quarterback Chris Metz sprinted out with three seconds left but was stymied just short of the end zone. Cornell did manage to churn out more than 300 yards on the ground against Penn's youthful defense in Philadelphia.

But Penn at least gave its supporters something to cheer about before basketball season, and its offense promises to generate electricity for the rest of the season.

Hangover time

Ten thousand men of Dartmouth suffered from the happy effects of the Hangover Hangover yesterday morning, as the Big Green triumphed over Princeton, 32-13. at home on Saturday.

Led by quarterback Rick Stafford, who replaced Los Angeles Rams rookie Jeff Kemp, Dartmouth compiled 400 yards of total offense against a riddled Tiger defense.

Big Green running back Sean Maher carried the ball just seven times but trundled for 71 yards, including first-half touchdown runs of 18 and 22 yards. Rich Lena accumulated 65 yards on 14 carries to support Maher on the ground.

Stafford also clicked with flanker Shaun Teevens for a 37-yd. TD pass. Teevens last fall wrecked Harvard with a pair of acrobatic catches.

Princeton jumped out to an early 7-0 lead on steady fullback Larry Van Pelt's 20-yd. touchdown run, but Darmouth built a 20-7 margin by halftime.