How much longer?

For a program that has won 12 Ivy League championships in the last 25 years, two consecutive losing seasons has the distinct feel of a slump.

Last year marked the second-straight 5-5, 3-4 Ivy season. Before that, it took the Quakers five years from 2000-04 to lose just three conference games. Now, the team is using that spotty past as motivation to avoid a similar fate.

Maybe even too much.

"The coaches have told us throughout the preseason to tone it down a little bit," co-captain and linebacker Joe Anastasio said. "Guys are just flying around, really hitting, really eager to be out here and just turn this team around, this whole season around after what happened last year."

It wasn't just the number in the loss column, but how the team dropped four conference games. The Quakers started the Ivy season off 2-0 - allowing a combined 10 points to Dartmouth and Columbia - before dropping overtime contests to Yale and Brown, followed by a heartbreaking double-overtime loss to Princeton.

The returning players could try to forget what happened and clean the slates. But they are reminding themselves of it constantly.

"I think a lot of it is still in our minds. Every day we go out here we realize that we were eight points away from winning a championship," running back Joe Sandberg said. "It's those eight points that are making us go even harder when it's 115 degrees out here, and get through camp."

Some are just trying to move on. The last two seasons, the team has seen major setbacks - the death of teammate Kyle Ambrogi and an average of two points per loss a year later.

"We've been talking about forgetting last season," said junior quarterback Robert Irvin, who himself had a season to remember in 2006, emerging as a serviceable signal-caller as a sophomore. "We had a lot of promise last year - three overtime losses in a row - but we're going to try to forget about the two 5-5 years because it's not Penn-like for the last 20 years."

And the way this year's team is shaping up, there is a lot to be optimistic about. Of the 16 positions, 13 have returning starters, including quarterback, running back and both corners.

"In the last couple years especially, there has been a big ingredient missing in either one," head coach Al Bagnoli said. "You had seven defensive backs graduate in one [year], for example, or you didn't have a quarterback with a snap under his belt. . We have the foundation. There isn't any critical area where you look and say 'oh, boy, what are we going to do here.' "

Bagnoli cites offensive line, where he graduated guard Sean Estrada (now a center on the NFL's 49ers) and three-year starting tackle Marko Grzan as the only real question mark.

Returning at quarterback is Irvin, Sandberg comes back from a 1,000-yard season, nose guard Naheem Harris returns from a first-team All-Ivy year and three members of the young secondary from 2006 will start again alongside safety and co-captain Pat Kimener.

The kicking woes of a year ago, made so pronounced by the close losses, may be resolved. Bagnoli brought in three freshman kickers - "unheard of," he said - in order to avoid the 7-for-15 performance of last season.

In addition, the Quakers bring in new offensive coordinator, Bill Schmitz. The former Alabama-Birmingham man brings a more aggressive style that Bagnoli likens to that of former coordinator Andy Coen. The Quakers averaged an uncharacteristic 22.8 points per game under the conservative offense of Shawn Halloran. Under Schmitz, quarterbacks rushing and a no-huddle offense will be the norm.

"We had to be a little bit conservative [last year], and a little bit of it was cause and effect of having a quarterback that didn't have a single snap under his belt," Bagnoli said. "You couldn't put too much on his plate."

So with a new offense and many of the same players, Penn is hoping that 2007 is the year they forget their troubles and get back on the winning road. But the team picked as second place in the Ivy media poll has to show that the preseason optimism this year is something different from the last two.

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