Georgetown may be the smaller, slower, and less experienced team on the field when they take on Yale tomorrow. But they do have a plethora of metaphors at their disposal.

They are the David to Yale’s Goliath. They are the snake lurking in the grass, ready to jump out and sink its venomous fangs into the ankle of the defending Ivy League champs as they stroll past unsuspectingly.

They are the ultimate underdog.

After hours of practice and film study this week, senior fullback Kyle van Fleet has formulated his own analogy in anticipation for Saturday’s 1 p.m. kickoff at the Multi-Sport Facility.

“We have to be like a fox,” van Fleet said. “We know going in against Yale that they’re going to be bigger than us, probably going to be stronger than us, so we have to be smarter than they are. We have to go out and execute on the field.”

To say the Bulldogs have some weight on the Hoyas would be putting it lightly – Yale senior defensive end and team captain Brandt Hollander has 40 pounds on the man charged with blocking him, Georgetown junior offensive tackle Collin Meador. On the flipside, the Hoyas’ defensive end Chudi Obianwu gives up 50 pounds to his opponent, Jeff Monaco, the Bulldogs’ preseason all-American offensive guard.

But Georgetown showed some improvement last weekend against a physically imposing Lafayette squad – a team by whom they were throttled 45-14 last season – by holding the Leopards to 28 points.

Yale Head Coach Jack Siedlecki, of two Ivy League titles and a .640 career winning percentage, isn’t about to start downplaying the Hoyas before his team’s season opener.

“Georgetown has an experienced quarterback and a talented corps of skill players on offense,” Siedlecki said. “It is always a challenge to open against a team that has already played two games, and being on the road adds to that challenge.”

One talent that emerged last week against Lafayette was freshman slot man Mychal Harrison, who late in the game scored the first of what may be many touchdowns for the Hoyas this season.

Head Coach Kevin Kelly believes the offense could have put more points on the board had his team simply limited their mistakes.

“We watched the tape from last week and we didn’t execute,” Kelly said following Thursday morning’s practice. “If we did, we would have had some big plays, had some first downs, we would have controlled the ball.”

Following three fumbles and an interception by senior quarterback Matt Bassuener, it came as no surprise that Kelly, when asked to list the five keys to beating Yale, repeated “execution” five times in rapid succession.

With the Bulldog defensive backfield looking more like a group of Great Danes, Bassuener and receivers better be in sync.

“Their secondary is big, they’re a little bit like linebackers back there,” Bassuener said. “Coach will find a weakness and we just have to go out and exploit it.”

The task for senior linebacker Stephen Smith and the defense is painfully simple, but painful nonetheless – stop 2006 all-Ivy running back Mike McCleod. McCleod, who as a junior is already fourth on the Yale career touchdowns list, runs with purpose, grace and confidence. But any back running behind Monaco and the rest of the Bulldogs’ Berlin Wall of an offensive line would put up gaudy stats. McCleod should shoulder the load until first-year starter junior Ryan Fodor gets his feet wet at quarterback.

“They have a strong running game, but they are a just good team and strong team,” Smith said. “We have to come out with the mindset that we can do this. We have to believe in ourselves, and believe we can win.”

Smith, who led Eleanor Roosevelt High to the Maryland State Semifinals as a senior, echoes his head coaches’ theme for the week: “Expect to win.”

“When you are a team that has not had a lot of success, the mentality is more that you wish it could happen or you hope it could happen,” Kelly, who is 0-2 against Ivy-league opponents at Georgetown, said. “I told them that we can’t wish to win, we can’t hope to win. We have to go out and prepare, and then expect to win the ball game.”

So with the scales tipped so far from their favor, how do the Hoyas become the fox? Will offensive coordinator Jim Miceli attack with some Statue of Liberty strategy, a la Boise State over Oklahoma?

“Who knows?” van Fleet said. “We have a couple of tricky plays in the playbook, but I don’t know if we will pull them out.”

Or do they just spit in the faces of the loyal fellows and their “Boola-boola,” much like afterthought Appalachian State did when they knocked off Michigan in the tradition-rich Big House two weeks ago?

“I think we have to come out and hit somebody in the mouth,” Smith said. “We might be the underdog in a lot of games, but this is college football, and anything can happen. The bottom line is: You expect to win, you win.

Kickoff is slated for 1 p.m. Saturday at the Multi-Sport Facility.