ITHACA, N.Y. -- As the Penn football team faced its final challenge of the 2002 season on Saturday, we learned that neither snow, nor wind, nor cold, nor the gloom of Ithaca could derail them.
There would have been so many excuses for the Quakers had they not played up to their capabilities this weekend.
After all, they had already clinched at least a share of the Ivy League championship by defeating Harvard in a game that merited and received national attention.
The ESPN Gameday crew visited Franklin Field for its first ever broadcast from a Division I-AA school. Penn never gave the Crimson a sniff in a 44-9 whitewashing, turning a rainy day into an afternoon-long celebration for the Quakers.
Plus, this Cornell game was played on the road, away from the Penn fans that were so impressively boisterous in their support last week.
This week's contest was, instead, played before an intimate gathering of 4,090 (to be quite generous) a four-hour bus ride away.
In addition, Penn's Floridian quarterback, Mike Mitchell, had to play in less than familiar conditions.
The game time temperature was 30 degrees, and Mitchell had to attack a defense that is accustomed to playing in a town where winter begins on Labor Day.
Yet, his performance at Schoellkopf Field on Saturday was just like the one on Oct. 26 at the Yale Bowl. It was similar to Nov. 9 at Princeton Stadium. It had been repeated countless weeks at Franklin Field.
It was dominant.
That one word -- dominant -- probably best sums up this team's ferocious march through the league this fall.
Some championship teams are scrappy and excel at pulling out close games -- the proverbial 'magic carpet ride' teams like the 2001 New England Patriots, for example.
But others leave the impression that they are in a class of their own and that it wasn't just a few breaks going their way that made the difference.
The Red and Blue were just flatout better than everyone else. A lot better.
This is not to say that Penn did not have to work hard to win this championship. Indeed, they were only projected to finish fourth in a pre-season media poll.
But Penn's closest Ivy League game this year came on the road against Yale. Keep in mind that 'close' is a relative term.
Penn torched the Elis 41-20.
All but one other Ivy League contest was decided by 30 or more points.
On Saturday, it looked as if that trend might be broken, as the Quakers nursed a 7-0 lead into the fourth quarter.
But a 24-point final stanza provided a stark reminder of just how dominant this Penn team was.
And thus, it was in many ways a characteristic performance.
Mitchell was intercepted twice, but spent most of the day as his usual accurate self, completing 28 of 39 passes.
Rob Milanese broke his own school record with 15 receptions in a game, and he was stellar all year as Mitchell's favorite target.
The rushing attack was balanced and productive. This year, Penn coach Al Bagnoli rotated running backs like Steve Spurrier goes through quarterbacks, but Stephen Faulk emerged as a legitimate threat in the Quaker backfield.
And, of course, the Penn defense was tremendous, capping another phenomenal season in style with a shutout.
For all these reasons, this may very well have been the best Penn team in the 11-year Al Bagnoli era.
It was the third time he has led the Quakers to a perfect record.
"I don't think the kids understand how hard [going unbeaten] is," he continued.
"And to do it with the margin of victory we've had, I think it's a special season, a special group of people, and I just couldn't be happier for them because certainly the best team in our league won, and they won in the fashion that they were winning in the whole year."
