Now comes the easy part.
The Quakers made one final goal-line stand and conquered previously undefeated Harvard on the road last Saturday. They’ve done that whole Gatorade-and-cigar deal, and now a Cornell team that hasn’t won since September will gift wrap Penn’s trophy and maybe even put a bow on top.
Except coach Al Bagnoli has been here before — six times to be exact — and knows that clinching an outright Ivy League championship against the Red and Blue’s oldest rival won’t be that easy.
While the Crimson travel to Yale praying for a Penn loss, the Quakers (7-2, 6-0) will try to claim the title for themselves tomorrow beginning at 1 p.m. at Franklin Field.
“We’ve done a lot of the heavy lifting, but it’s not over,” Bagnoli said. “We’ve still got some work to do and our work isn’t going to be done until about four o’clock on Saturday.”
That work will be done against a team that has skidded to the finish line, to say the least. Losers of seven straight, the Big Red (2-7, 1-5 Ivy) have suffered through their share of blowouts, but have also dropped a pair of heartbreakers to Ivy cellar-dwellers Princeton and Dartmouth.
Those two battles, packaged with a close contest against Columbia last week and an impressive pair of season-opening wins over Bucknell and Yale, give Bagnoli reason to believe Cornell could be dangerous.
Not only does Cornell boast the League’s leader in all-purpose yards (178.9 per game) in wide receiver Bryan Walters who can make a big play at any time, but according to Bagnoli, Cornell also knows how to play mind games.
“If you just watch the tape and you didn’t know what their win-loss record is you would have never guessed they’re 2-7,” Bagnoli said. “They’ve caused schematic headaches against everybody.”
But the cure for a schematic headache for the Quakers is preparing for a seemingly weak opponent with the same focus and intensity that got them at the very least a share of the Ivy crown.
“It’s going to be [Cornell’s] Super Bowl,” Bagnoli said. “They’re gonna come out flying so we’re gonna have to match that intensity.”
Apparently his players have gotten the message.
“I know we’re gonna come out ready,” defensive tackle Joe Goniprow said. “We’re definitely not looking past these guys.”
After a week of learning all about the historical significance of this game — Penn’s shot at an eleventh outright Ivy title in the 116th Penn-Cornell meeting — Goniprow and his senior teammates further appreciate the opportunity in front of them.
“We want to leave our mark here,” Goniprow said, “as not just a good team but a great team, especially on the defensive side of the ball.”
The seniors have not only been hearing it from coaches, but from alumni too — specifically alumni who endured the crushing conclusion to the 1988 season. That year, the Quakers entered their season finale with an unblemished Ivy mark, but were forced to share the title after losing to the Big Red.
The words of those alumni resonate in the mind of linebacker Jake Lewko.
“Not a day goes by that they don’t regret it were the exact words,” said Lewko, whose career-high 15 tackles keyed last week’s victory over Harvard.
“So we’re thinking the same thing. We want to finish this the right way: senior year, put a stamp on it, one of the greatest seasons at Penn.”
And that’s exactly what has been fueling the Quakers heading into Saturday. That’s how the team has remained driven to complete its goal even with a small obstacle like Cornell standing in the way.
As Bagnoli put it: “We’ve all invested too much stuff, too much time, too much effort, too much energy to come up short.”
Goniprow was more to the point in his not-so-eloquent statement:
“We’re gonna get this thing done.”
Comments
Let's Make THE GAME Irrelevant
Tomorrow the curtain falls on the 2009 Ivy League Football Season.
Princeton travels to Dartmouth and Brown travels to Columbia for meaningless contests other than bragging rights between those schools involved.
In New Haven, Harvard and Yale play in their 126th contest, THE GAME, as fans of the Crimson and Bulldogs refer to their finale.
A Harvard victory, coupled with a Penn loss, would give the Cantabrians a share of the 2009 Ivy Football Title.
The Penn Football Team has come to far and overcome to much adversity to share a title this season. The Quakers want to defeat Cornell and win an unprecedented 11th outright Ivy League Championship. Despite a lack-luster season, the Big Red will be a major challenge to this feat. The football team and much deserving Coach Bagnoli and his staff would appreciate the support of the entire Penn community.
Be part of Penn Football History and cheer the Red and Blue to victory, making THE GAME at the Bowl irrelevant.
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Except coach Al Bagnoli has
Except coach Al Bagnoli has been here before — six times to be Promotional Merchandise exact — and knows that clinching an outright Ivy League championship against the Red and Blue’s oldest rival won’t be that easy.
A field-game resembling
A field-game resembling rugby football was a game played by ancient Greeks called specatoras (Greek: επίσκυρος).[1][2][3] In Wales such a sport is called cnapan or "criapan", and has medieval roots. The old Irish predecessor of rugby may be caid. The Cornish called it "hurling to goals" which dates back to the bronze age, the West country called it "hurling over country" ase practice test (neither should to be confused with Gaelic hurling in which the ball is hit with a stick called a hurley or hurl, not carried), East Anglians "Campball", the French "La Soule" or "Chole" (a rough-and-tumble cross-country game las vegas hotel). English villages cissp braindump were certainly playing games of 'fute ball' during the 1100s. English boarding schools would certainly have developed their own variants of this game as soon as they were established—the Eton Wall Game being one example.
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The game of football which was played at Rugby School between 1750 and 1859 permitted handling of the ball, but no-one was allowed to run with it in their hands towards the opposition's goal. There was no fixed limit to the number of players per side and sometimes there were hundreds taking part in a kind of enormous rolling maul. This sport caused major injury at cissp exam times orlando hotel. The innovation of running with the ball was introduced some time between 1859 and 1865. William Webb Ellis has been credited with breaking the local rules by running forwards with the ball in a game in 1823. Shortly after this the Victorian mind turned to establishing written rules for the sports which had earlier just involved local agreements, and boys from Rugby School produced the first vmware certification written rules for their version of the sport in 1870. Rugby would also be considered a dangerous game but fun