BUILDINGS BLOCKS: DeRosa is now the Ivies' premiere quarterback

Maybe it was the school-record 360 yards he amassed in last season's finale to rally Penn past Cornell. Or maybe it was the fact that he did it with torn ligaments in his thumb, a cast on his throwing hand, and an appointment for surgery right after the game. But by the end of the 1994 season, Mark DeRosa had made the jump from promising to premiere. And this year, the junior quarterback with gunpowder at his fingertips should only get better. "If you watch him play, you know he's a natural," preseason all-American wideout Miles Macik said. "You watch him drop back and the ball just jumps off his hand." And, more often than not, into the hands of his receivers. DeRosa completed better than 62 percent of his passes as a redshirt freshman last season, finishing with a passing efficiency rating of 135.6. "He's as accurate a thrower as I've been around," Quakers coach Al Bagnoli said. "He may not physically look it because he's slender, but Mark is a terrific athlete. He has great reflexes, great hand-eye coordination and tremendous accuracy." The head coach's biggest worry about his starting quarterback? "The baseball draft," Bagnoli deadpanned, referring to DeRosa's spring job as the starting shortstop on the Penn baseball team. But even if the Yankees were to pluck DeRosa from the lineup today, Penn would still have its most experienced backup in years waiting in the wings. Steve Teodecki, a 6-foot-1, 203 pound junior who appeared in five games last season and three as a freshman, gives the Quakers a dependable -- if less physically gifted -- arm off the bench. "Steve, with his experience, is a solid kid," Penn quarterbacks coach Larry Woods said. "If he had to go in on the second play of the Dartmouth game, we wouldn't change a thing we were doing offensively. We feel he can pick up right where Mark left off." Sophomore Tommy McCloud beat out classmate Joe Beggans in last Friday's Georgetown scrimmage for the third-string position, though, according to Woods, the competition was stiff. Freshman Damian Swank of Folsom, Calif., is currently the fifth quarterback. "We were really happy with the way all three of those guys played in the Georgetown game," Woods said. The key for the Quakers, however, will still be a healthy DeRosa. "It's as much Mark's offense as anything else," Woods said. "We've got as good a quarterback as there is in the league right now." Given the departure of star running back Terrance Stokes and a blossoming DeRosa, Bagnoli, who has been criticized for being too conservative, hinted the Quakers might open up the offense and air it out more often. "This is the first time we've had a quarterback with nine games' experience in our system," Bagnoli said. "We're going to have to open it up a little more. "Last year, a lot of the decisions were conservative, and they should have been, because we felt that good about our defense. This year, we may not be in that situation. I'm not going to say we have a bad defensive team?but we have to do a good job of understanding our personnel." If DeRosa has a weakness, it is his competitive nature. "Last year, [DeRosa] went out and it was just pure ability and talent that he had the success he did," Woods said. "Now it's a matter of making him aware of the big picture -- knowing when you're protected and when you've got to throw the ball away. He never just wants to throw the ball away." That may have accounted for DeRosa's rather mediocre touchdown to interception ratio (13/9) last season, a stat DeRosa indicated he would like to improve on this season. And Woods seems to have delivered the message about not trying to do too much. "I'm not going to try to do too much more than I did last year," DeRosa said, echoing his coaches. "We've got such a talented offense that I really shouldn't have to do that much more." Nevertheless, given a chance, the Carlstadt, N.J., native is willing and more than able to light up the West Philly airways. "I'm the kind of kid who likes to make big plays," DeRosa said. "If they call the play to hand off, that's fine, but I don't want to hand off. I want to throw."

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