Penn football concluded its spring practice schedule on Friday, sending both the team and the coaching staff into summer with plenty to think about.
Not the least of its worries will be last year's 3-4 Ivy League record.
Friday's intersquad game -- which drew over 150 enthusiastic fans -- represented the last time that Penn coach Al Bagnoli can assess the state of his team before its composition changes drastically.
"Basically, I wanted to put the kids in a game scenario -- especially the young kids -- and just see how they react," Bagnoli said.
"Coming back in August, we've got to hit the ground running."
New names, new faces
Next year's incoming freshmen won't be the only ones adjusting to a new coaching staff.
Every player -- especially those on the offensive side of the ball -- will also have to adapt to Penn's new offensive coordinator.
Shawn Halloran took over for former coordinator Andy Coen, who left for the head job at Lehigh.
"We're still erratic," Bagnoli said. "It's somewhat to be expected -- we have a lot of coaching changes. We've tweaked some things, so we're still somewhat on a learning curve."
Those changes also included the hiring of offensive line coach Jonathan McLaughlin -- formerly of the University of Iowa -- as well as former Trinity special teams coach Jonathan Dupont as the assistant secondary coach.
Wide open
Bagnoli will be the first to tell you that next year's role of starting quarterback is anything but certain.
Sophomore quarterback Brian Walker "is the only one with any noticeable [game] snaps, so I was trying to get some of the young guys in there to see what they can do," he said.
Also in the running are rising sophomores Robert Irvin and James Hannah.
But the man behind center won't be the only one who will have to fight for his job.
"There's a lot of positions that we have to look at that are somewhat open," Bagnoli said. "There's very few incumbent starters back that you would say have enough experience" to be virtual locks.
Bagnoli also pointed to the wide-receiver, linebacker, and defensive-back positions as being "not totally solidified."
The team will field an almost entirely new secondary next year with the loss of Victor Davanzo, Casey Edgar, Adam Francks, Michael Johns, Doug Middleton, and Kelechi Okere to graduation.
The search for new role players has been both encouraging and difficult for the coaches thus far.
"They're so chomping at the bit to make plays," defensive coordinator Ray Priori said. "But they have to understand that they have to [execute] little techniques" as well.
Disabled List
Injury is a concern at any football scrimmage.
But the Quakers can breathe a sigh of relief; they seem to have come out of this spring game relatively unscathed.
However, Penn still has a number of concerns on the tail-end of its spring season.
"We didn't get hurt in this game, but a lot of our key kids didn't play for either the entire spring or didn't play in [this] game."
Noticeably absent from Friday's contest, though, were freshman tailback Sam Shepherd, who was hurt in the previous practice, as well as junior defensive lineman Brian Fairbanks.
Andrew Allen (20 tackles in seven games last year), as well as second-team All-Ivy running back Joe Sandberg -- who had offseason shoulder surgery -- have also missed all or most of the spring practice season.
