If it looked too easy, that’s because it was.
Saturday’s game was supposed to be the defending Ivy League champion’s biggest test yet. For the second straight week, Penn faced a team with an undefeated conference record.
But again, the champion sent the challenger home reeling after a dominating performance.
“Our kids came up big against a good football team,” Penn coach Al Bagnoli said.
That’s not something the coach could have said after last season’s Brown game, when Penn squeaked out a 14-7 overtime win despite throwing four interceptions. The senior-laden 2009 team — the program’s first title-winner since 2003 — perfected the ‘ugly victory’ on its way to an undefeated Ivy season.
This win was pretty.
After cycling through quarterbacks throughout the 2009 season, mainly due to injury, this year’s Quakers have finally found their man in Billy Ragone. The speedy sophomore adds a new dimension to an offense that has always been able to pound the rock.
“Their run game is just vastly superior to anything we’ve gone up against,” said Brown coach Phil Estes after Penn posted a whopping 321 rushing yards. “[And Ragone] throws it well enough that if you’re going to stack the box, you’re going to pay the price.”
After the game, Bagnoli could hardly hold back praise for his quarterback, who ran 151 yards and threw for 92 more.
Ragone is making better decisions on passing plays and hasn’t thrown an interception since Penn’s Week 3 game against Dartmouth. He also brings an explosiveness to the backfield that is not always typical of his position.
“When he goes back to pass and nothing is open, he’s not throwing the ball out of bounds, he’s not taking a sack,” Bagnoli said. “He’s got that escapability factor that everybody’s looking for, and when he gets into the open field, he’s electric.”
Saturday, Ragone electrified the Homecoming crowd of 14,854 with two runs of over 30 yards, including a second-quarter 54-yard touchdown that opened the game’s scoring.
The Quakers have now scored at least 24 points in five straight games. Last season, they reached that milestone just twice in the first seven weeks before unloading on Princeton and Cornell to the tune of 76 combined points. Penn will again face the Tigers and the Big Red in the final three weeks, but the schedule may as well show a welcome mat.
“I’ve been telling [the players] all year that the schedule breaks very well for us,” Bagnoli said. “Arguably the two hardest games — which are Harvard and Brown on paper — we got them both at home.”
But even though his team is now equipped with a potent offense to complement its ferocious defense, Bagnoli would only acknowledge that “we probably have better balance” when comparing this year’s team to that of 2009.
He also avoided labeling his team as championship-caliber quite yet, given that three games remain and “there has never been an Ivy champion with three losses.”
“It’s way too early to call it,” the coach added, “but what we do have — and nobody else in our league has it — is control of our own destiny.”
For now, that’s enough for Bagnoli and this group of Quakers. To the rest of the League, though, the slaying of the Bears sent the message that Penn is back and better than ever.
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