Here’s how Penn’s overtime thriller against Dartmouth was a bit of reverse déjà vu

Last season, Penn arrived at Dartmouth as double-digit underdogs and pulled off an upset victory in overtime. This year’s matchup played out exactly the same, only — unfortunately for Penn — the result was the other way around.

In their home and Ivy opener, the Quakers and their fans (though there were a noticeable amount of Big Green fans in attendance), were silenced by Dartmouth, which earned a 23-20 overtime victory behind a turnover-heavy defensive performance. The Quakers had three costly fumbles in the first half, plus an early blocked punt.

Penn trailed by 10 with a little over 10 minutes left but clawed its way back to force overtime after Albert Jang drilled a 51-yarder with 1 minute, 3 seconds left in regulation. In OT, the Quakers (2-1, 0-1) had a three-and-out and missed a 42-yard field goal before Big Green (2-1, 1-0) converted a 37-yard field goal.

For long stretches of the game, Penn struggled to generate much offensively, mustering just 11 rushing yards and, with about six minutes left in the first half, just three points.

For one brief instant, though, that wasn’t the case on an explosive 52-yard touchdown with 5:36 left in the second quarter.

On the play, junior quarterback Aidan Sayin faked a quarterback draw before lobbing a TD pass to wide-open freshman running back Malachi Hosley.

“Malachi’s got some juice, so we ran it down the middle, see if he can beat a linebacker, and he did, so gave it to him wide open,” Sayin said.

Sayin had another strong day in terms of yardage, throwing for a career-high 357 yards with two touchdowns on 36 of 55 passing, but had two costly fumbles late in the first half. The first led to a touchdown and the second to a field goal, putting Penn down, 20-10, going into the break.

“You can’t make the early mistakes that we did … you can’t do that and expect to be in those games close,” said Penn coach Ray Priore.

The beginning of the second half played out much like the first. The Quakers scored just one touchdown with just under six minutes to go, cutting Dartmouth’s lead to three.

Penn had a shot to either win the game or go to overtime with 3:13 left when Sayin and the offense got the ball back on the Quakers’ 33-yard line following a Dartmouth punt.

After two first downs, Penn began to falter at Dartmouth’s 34-yard line, nearly hitting a deep ball in the end zone on second down and bobbling a toss play on third. On fourth-and-6, Penn sent out the kicking unit, but starting kicker Graham Gottlieb was replaced by Jang, a junior punter.

Jang nailed the 51-yarder, a regularity in the NFL or the Power 5, but in the Ivy League, quite the feat. It tied a program record for the third-longest field goal in program history, a feat dating back to the 1976 season.

“I was just excited to be able to have that opportunity. … Graham’s done a phenomenal job for us all last year, all this year,” Jang said. “I tend to think that I have a little bit bigger of a leg than him, and so I think I had a good opportunity to hit that long field goal.”

Penn started with the ball in overtime but quickly went three-and-out after consecutive incompletions. Instead of Jang, Penn sent out Gottlieb, who missed the 42-yarder wide left.

Dartmouth sealed the win with a 37-yard kick, and the Big Green’s players erupted onto the field, moshing right on Penn’s midfield emblem.

Right out the gate, the Big Green established momentum with a blocked punt that set them up on the Quakers’ one-yard line. Sophomore linebacker Nico Schwikal blew right past his Quaker blocker, swatting Jang’s kick with a well-placed left hand.

Dartmouth fifth-year quarterback Nick Howard ran in for an easy one-yard score on the next play for a 7-0 lead just 1:03 into the game. Howard led the team in passing (74 yards) and rushing (58 yards), employing a number of quarterback draws. He was one of three QBs the Big Green employed.

Dartmouth’s offensive attack was entirely centered around the ground game with 41 of their 69 plays being runs. The strategy might’ve seemed risky, as Penn came in as the best-rushing defense in the FCS, but the plan paid dividends with 133 rushing yards.

Penn will look to bounce back against Georgetown in a nonconference matchup on Saturday (1 p.m., ESPN+) at Franklin Field. The Quakers defeated Georgetown (2-2), 59-28, last season on the road.