After a season where just eight points separated the Penn football team from an undefeated Ivy League record, head coach Al Bagnoli felt something had to change - and fast.
So the Athletic Department fired offensive coordinator Shawn Halloran after just one year at the position, and hire former Alabama-Birmingham tight ends and running backs coach Bill Schmitz to fill the vacancy.
Now the race is on.
While rushing yards per game stayed constant and passing yards per game rose by about 30, points scored per game dropped by about four under Halloran.
And the game results didn't reflect an offense on the rise.
The result was a second straight 3-4 campaign in league play, and the three-year title drought has tied Bagnoli's personal mark.
Several times throughout the season Penn fell victim to close losses, including three straight overtime losses during the Ivy League season that culminated with a painful one-point double-overtime loss at Princeton.
But although the fourth-place Ivy finish doesn't sit well with the team, the Quakers believe that the issues are ones that can be resolved with the help of Schmitz.
"The problems that we had were just a lack of communication from the coaching staff to the players, and vice-versa," said junior fullback Nick Cisler, who emerged as an aerial threat towards the end of last year. "Schmitz has a really strong understanding of what he wants to run and when he wants to do it, so hopefully we'll have the coaches on the same page as the athletes this season, whereas last season it wasn't that way."
Before his two years at UAB, Schmitz saw success at both the high school and Division III level.
His vision for Penn's offense is clear - and it appears to fall in line with Bagnoli's philosophy, long known to lean towards the pass, and with the Quakers' performance last season, when big plays in the passing game were commonplace.
Schmitz explained; "We're going to have to be very physical and run the football hard, we have to be very set in our pass protections and we have got to be able to make plays at the wide receiver position."
The combination of returning running back Joe Sandberg and junior wide receiver Braden Lepisto, who both won games for Penn last season, should give Schmitz a jump-start.
He also said that an area in Penn's offense that he felt was lacking last year was versatility at the quarterback position.
Last year, Penn's offensive attack relied primarily on the arm of sophomore quarterback Robert Irvin, although junior Bryan Walker's running ability provided a spark off the bench.
"I've had really good success running the quarterback and I think that is a direction that [Bagnoli] was looking for when he went out looking for a new offensive coordinator," Schmitz said. "Two of our quarterbacks, Bryan Walker and Brendan McNally are very good athletes, so that fits them, and Robert is going to have to pick that up in the summer."
Schmitz had the opportunity to show off his scheme at the Quakers' first spring practice last night and began to unveil his plan to help Penn work towards the perfect Ivy season that proved elusive last year.
