Back seventh heaven for Penn football

The number seven.

It’s known affectionately as “lucky number seven,” your best bet on any given dice roll.

In Ivy League football, seven may be even more ubiquitous. It’s both the value of a touchdown with the extra point and the number of games against other Ivy squads in any given season for a team.

In this upcoming season, though, Penn football may be even more reliant on the number than usual.

After a subpar defensive performance in 2013, the Quakers will look to their remarkably experienced and accomplished defensive back seven to spark a run towards an Ivy title in coach Al Bagnoli’s final season.

Of course, Penn had similar intentions going into last season, but the results simply did not materialize.

In 2013, the Red and Blue gave up the fifth-most passing yards via the third-highest completion percentage in the Ivy League last season, and they still have the bad taste of a poor defensive performance against Cornell in their season finale in their mouths.

“Being fifth in anything is no good,” defensive coordinator and coach-in-waiting Ray Priore said.

Things are looking different this year, though, and Penn’s coaching staff has gone so far as to identify the back seven as one of the team’s biggest strengths.

“I think the strength of our defense is in our linebackers and secondary, our second and third level,” Priore said. “They have the most experience coming back ... so expectations are high.”

The team’s secondary benefits from this experience, it features two fifth-year senior captains and All-Ivy defensive backs in Dan Wilk and Evan Jackson.

“They’re like coaches on the field,” Priore said.

These upperclassmen have taken full responsibility for the secondary’s lackluster overall performance last year.

“We all have a chip on our shoulder. Things didn’t really bounce our way last year,” Wilk said. “We have to look at ourselves and do something to change it.

Wilk believes that the extra year of relationship-building amongst the secondary will pay dividends in on-field results this season.

“We’re one of the closer knit groups on the team. We’re always hanging out,” he said. “We kinda just expect to ball out every game.”

Priore also believes that the secondary will be able to successfully rebound from its subpar performance last year, based largely on the chemistry it has demonstrated thus far this preseason.

“I think they really gel. We have the ability to play a lot of man-to-man coverage,” Priore said.

With Penn’s somewhat unconventional base set of five defensive backs and only two linebackers, the coordination of action between members of the secondary is even more crucial. However, they should have the personnel to pull it off.

“I can’t say enough about [junior defensive back] Kenny Thomas,” senior lin ebacker Dan Davis said. “He should be preseason first-team All-Ivy. He’s just a freak.”

Penn’s linebackers should not be lost in the conversation of the back seven, though, especially when they are anchored by Davis, a first-team All-Ivy performer last season and current team captain.

Davis is ready to take on a whole new set of responsibilities in his final season.

“It takes just a different perspective on everything,” he said on the prospect of his upcoming senior season. “You want to kind of just do it and live in the moment.”

Davis has a strong — albeit raw — talent beside him in sophomore Donald Panciello, who spent some time as punter last season.

“He’s a great player. He doesn’t have the perfect physique or any thing like that, but he’s an amazing athlete,” Davis said. “He’s six-foot tall and can two-handed dunk, windmill dunk.”

Despite his relative inexperience, however, Panciello was selected Ivy League Rookie of the Week once last season (as a punter) and has consistently impressed with his considerable athleticism.

The linebackers will receive a significant test this weekend against Jacksonville, a team that put up big numbers on the ground in its most recent victory over San Diego.

It remains to be seen whether or not it is able to bounce back from its mediocre production last season, but Penn’s back seven certainly has the potential to carry Bagnoli to an Ivy title in his final season.

“Our guys are focused, and they understand what needs to get done,” Priore said.

And luck has nothing to do with it.

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