Turn Back the Clock | Penn football renews rivalry with Villanova

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It seems pretty commonplace nowadays.

Early on every season, Penn football takes on Villanova and — at least every time within recent memory — it loses.

However, it wasn’t all that long ago that the two teams playing was far from a familiar occurrence.

A little less than 15 years ago on Sept. 25, 1999, the Quakers and Wildcats decided to rejuvenate a Big 5 rivalry that had lain dormant for the previous 19 years.

Anticipation was high for the matchup, as special $5 ticket prices and a late 5 p.m. Saturday start time facilitated a crowd tallying well over 20,000.

“Even when you get 10,000 people in this stadium, it looks like there’s no one here,” then-Penn linebacker Jim Hisgen said. “So it’s just nice to see a lot of people cheering for you.”

The Red and Blue may have waited a long time for the matchup, but once the game started, it couldn’t end fast enough for the Quakers.

Penn — which was previously 5-1 against Villanova — was run straight off of Franklin Field by the opposing Wildcats, losing handily, 34-6.

The Quakers hung in there for a quarter, staying within three points of their opponent, but after that, it wasn’t close.

Ranked No. 14 in Division I-AA football, this was a different Villanova team than the Quakers were accustomed to facing historically.

The Wildcats had a lot of athleticism out on the edges of the field, and they made it very evident throughout the game.

“There was a significant speed differential at the skill positions, both in their secondary versus our receivers and their receivers versus our secondary,” Penn coach Al Bagnoli — now in his final season — said. “I think we would’ve done OK if they’d tried to run the ball 30, 40, 50 times.”

Villanova parlayed these advantages into an absolute clinic in the passing game.

Wildcats quarterback Chris Boden broke his own school-record with 424 yards in the air off of 33-for-43 passing.

“We have a ton of weapons,” Boden said. “We’re just waiting to use them all.”

Meanwhile, Penn’s offense was overwhelmed by the athleticism present on the other side of the ball. Then-quarterback Gavin Hoffman was limited to a meager 108 passing yards off of only 7.7 yards per catch.

The Quakers did manage to retain possession of the ball for 28 minutes, but they simply did not have the firepower to compete with the Wildcats.

Since then, Penn has played Villanova nearly every season and has failed to win any of these matchups. In fact, Penn hasn’t beaten Villanova since 1911.