By Jim Fuller, Register Staff
jfuller@newhavenregister.com

WEST HAVEN — Shortly before Matt Battaglia stepped onto Clint Frank Field for the Yale football team’s intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday, the junior defensive end was issued a “put up or shut up” challenge by Doug Semones, his position coach.

Semones and Yale football coach Tom Williams saw Battaglia string together a series of impressive practices during spring camp. Yet, in Williams’ words “he didn’t show up in the spring game.”

So with Battaglia, a junior from Simsbury, pushing incumbent Sean Williams for a starting defensive end spot during the first eight fall practices, the Yale coaches did not want to see a repeat performance.

Battaglia, bulked up to 265 pounds after being listed at 244 during the 2009 season, responded. He sacked Yale starting quarterback Patrick Witt twice in the first four offensive plays, later tossed down receiver Chris Smith on a reverse, batted down a pass at the line of scrimmage and posted a team-high six tackles while starting ahead of Williams.

“I felt good,” Battaglia said. “Coach Semones told me to be ready to go and put the best I had on tape. He has always said that and today I felt like I did that, especially early on. I was pretty satisfied with how I played in the first half.”

Battaglia was not alone.

“We challenged Matt to show who he really is as a football player,” Tom Williams said. “He has teased us for a long time. The challenge to him is ‘who are you? Are you the guy who practices really well and doesn’t play well on Saturdays or are you a guy we can count on to make some plays.’ I know Coach Semones challenged him today, he came out and performed. Hopefully that will continue because athletically we think he is going to be a mismatch for a lot of people. If he can continue to come and play well, he should be a great player for us opposite Tom (McCarthy).”

Battaglia was better known for his prowess on the basketball court at Northwest Catholic, but with some free time on his hands when there weren’t enough players to field a summer league basketball team, Battaglia decided to give football a try as a senior.

“It’s been crazy,” Battaglia said. “I was sitting there and applying to school, both of my parents went to Boston College so I was set to go there, maybe try to walk-on to the basketball team or maybe play intramurals. All of a sudden all of these people are calling me about football. I had a really stressful senior year, which is supposed to be easy, but everything ended up working out and I couldn’t be happier being at one of the best academic schools in the world. I have a great group of friends playing football.”

Allen Davis started at the other defensive end on Saturday after McCarthy was injured in the 7-on-7 portion of the scrimmage. Continued...

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“I was taking a pass drop as we were doing a zone blitz and I just felt a little twinge of my (left) Achilles,” McCarthy said. “Hopefully it is nothing too serious. I’ll have it checked out. It is really frustrating, nine days of camp and this is really the highlight getting after each other — a live scrimmage. Not being able to go today is kind of frustrating. It’s been sore the last few days but today I think I reaggravated it.”

Even without McCarthy, the defense dominated.

It was a stark contrast from the spring game when Witt teamed up with receivers Jordan Forney, Smith and Gio Christodoulou to shred the defensive unit.

The only touchdown on Saturday came when Yale worked on its red zone offense and Witt hit Smith for a 25-yard touchdown.

Wes Moyer had a sack and freshmen defensive backs Chris Brady and Nick Okano each had interceptions.

“Two days ago we had the goal line, short-yardage scrimmage and the offense kind of dominated that day,” Williams said. “They threw and caught it at will and the defense has been walking around for a couple of days (ticked) off about it. They came out today and gave a message that we are going to be a team to be reckoned with.”

Sophomore receiver Allen Harris led the offense with 42 yards on four receptions. The running game was not a factor as there were 14 plays either for no gain or negative yardage.

A couple of hours after the scrimmage ended, Yale was addressed by former stars Gary Fencik, Chuck Mercein, Mike McLeod and John Pagliaro. Mercein and Fencik won Super Bowl titles with Green Bay and Chicago respectively, McLeod is Yale’s all-time leading rusher and Pagliaro is a two-time Bushnell Cup winner as the Ivy League MVP, and father of Yale senior linebacker John Pagliaro, who had three tackles and broke up a pass.

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