Championships often come with a certain feeling of finality, a realization that a team has been built up over time and its goal is complete once the players hoist up the trophy.
But for this group of Quakers, the future is just as bright as the present.
Yes, the strength of this team lay in its tremendous collection of seniors, but you get the sense that Al Bagnoli’s plan isn’t just to bring the Ivy League title back to Philadelphia.
It’s to keep it here.
Talking to Bagnoli at practice leading up to Saturday’s game, I asked him about finishing the year strong. One particular statement he made stood out:
“You want to make sure you’re going into the offseason with a positive feel, with some momentum towards your offseason program.”
For a normal coach, looking ahead to the offseason just days before a huge game is a recipe for disaster. But Bagnoli’s resume and coaching acumen allow him to think big picture, which is all he was doing.
After the blowout win over Cornell, Bagnoli was more focused on praising the senior class. And while their leadership shined through, the Quakers would never have been in a position to win their coach’s school-record seventh Ivy title without key contributions from underclassmen.
Highly-touted freshmen Lyle Marsh and Billy Ragone both showed flashes of brilliance, enough to qualify them as Penn’s backfield of the future. Marsh was the team’s most effective rusher after a breakout second game at Lafayette, while Ragone played well in the Ivy opener at Dartmouth (62 rushing yards, 3-for-3 passing) before a season-ending collarbone injury dampened his first season.
On defense, linebacker Erik Rask, lineman Jared Sholly and defensive back Jim McGoldrick (all sophomores), among others, stepped up at various points in the season. Youth and depth at all three defensive levels are vital when considering the need to replace players like Joe Goniprow, Jake Lewko, Chris Wynn and Jonathan Moore.
Bagnoli seemed to have his great young talent in mind when discussing the team’s future after his latest triumph.
“We’re positioned really well for the long haul,” he said. “When you look at the teams that were at the upper echelon of the Ivy League this year, we’re far and away the youngest.”
That youth makes this season’s undefeated run even more impressive. It also suggests that the best is yet to come.
In fact, next year’s senior class appears to be even stronger, especially in number, than the Class of 2010. Keiffer Garton, Bradford Blackmon, Luke DeLuca, Brian Levine and Zach Heller — to name a few of the 33 total — should be able to step into new roles as veterans to compliment the up-and-coming players.
“Our junior class — I’m shocked when I look at it,” Bagnoli said.
And if there’s one thing he knows, as the coach with the highest Ivy winning percentage and the most outright titles in history, it’s how to stay on top once he gets there. Bagnoli’s championships have come in bunches — back-to-back in 1993 and ’94, three out of four from 2000 to 2003 — and the drought from ’03 to ’09 was the longest of his tenure.
“He’s one of the best in the business,” Cornell coach Jim Knowles said after his team’s 34-0 defeat. “They proved it again today; they’re a far superior team to us. They deserve to be champions.”
With that, the rest of the Ivy League came to a disheartening realization: the youngest team in the conference had just run the table in what may have been the Ancient Eight’s best shot at the Quakers for several seasons.
Sometimes, coaching in the same league as Al Bagnoli can be a helpless feeling.
BRIAN KOTLOFF is a sophomore communications major from Elkins Park, Pa. He can be contacted at dpsports@dailypennsylvanian.com.
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