Healthy Ryan a scary possibility - for foes

Despite an injury-filled 2000 season, Penn running back Kris Ryan rushed for 662 yards on only 129 carries. In the process, the Penn football team won an Ivy League championship and Ryan was named second team All-Ivy.

Now, the specter of a possibly injury-free season from Ryan looms over the rest of the Ancient Eight like a dark cloud. If healthy, Ryan seems poised to eclipse his 1999 season, in which he was unanimously named first team All-Ivy after leading the League in rushing.

Scary.

Indeed, adding a completely healthy Kris Ryan to an offense that includes several key returning players -- including Penn quarterback Gavin Hoffman, the 2000 Ivy League Player of the Year -- would likely make a championship-caliber pigskin squad positively lethal.

Ryan, however, for whom humility and piousness are the sine qua non of his personality, doesn't want to get ahead of himself when thinking about the near-limitless possibilities the upcoming campaign seems to offer. Instead, he is grateful that his season has progressed as well and as far as it has to this point.

"This year is awesome," said a grinning Ryan, whose Christian-awareness "I Agree With Kris" T-shirts were ubiquitous on campus two years ago. "I haven't even played a game and it's awesome that I've made it through camp and made it through the summer healthy. I thank God, man."

Ryan would like nothing more than a healthy end to his Penn football career, as his injuries last year, while not serious, were frustrating and prevented him from experiencing significant chunks of playing time he normally would have had.

A high ankle sprain caused the Pittsburgh native to miss the first two games of last season. Ryan returned for the Quakers' third game -- a 48-14 rout of hapless Dartmouth -- and looked good in limited action.

Two weeks later, however, Ryan turned his knee in a victory over Columbia and missed another game -- Penn's lone Ivy loss of the season, a 27-24 heartbreaker at Yale.

"I'd be lying if I didn't say it was a pain in the butt," he said of last year's nagging injuries.

Ryan's initial injury -- the ankle sprain -- occurred during the 2000 preseason, justifying his understandable relief that his health has been good thus far during this preseason. His injuries from last year have completely healed, and aside from the routine bumps and bruises of practice, Ryan is 100 percent healthy for tomorrow's season opener with Lehigh at Franklin Field.

"One step at a time," he said. "I'm going to have fun, and we'll take it from there."

Penn football coach Al Bagnoli hopes that Ryan will be having a lot of fun this season.

"It would make things a heck of a lot easier," a chuckling Bagnoli said of the prospect of Ryan's health lasting through the season. "Any time you have a dominant back, it forces the other team to do some things that would really enhance an offense's passing attack. It's really hard to play a five-on-five game inside with [Ryan] in the backfield."

Considering the resume that Hoffman brings to the table, it is difficult to envision a dearth of offensive fireworks at Franklin Field and at stadiums around the Ivy League this fall.

Filling in for Ryan in the backfield last season were several players who performed admirably. Running backs Mike Verille and Todd Okolovitch rushed for a combined 716 rushing yards and eight touchdowns, eclipsing and matching Ryan's season totals, respectively.

Replacing the graduated Verille are Jake Perskie, Graham Bangert, Michael Carr, the versatile Mike Faust and Tita Atte, who will join Okolovitch in backing Ryan up -- and filling in for him, if necessary.

"Whatever the team needs, I'll do," said Okolovitch, who added that his role will be largely based on Ryan's health and performance. "Whether I come in [on] third down, run the ball, what not. Kris is our main running back, so if he gets hurt or if he gets tired... I'm going to come in and do something."

Ryan acknowledges the important contributions his fellow backfielders made to the team last season and knows that those teammates will be extremely valuable to the Quakers' chances this season.

"They're wonderful, man, especially last year when I had a lot of pressure on me," Ryan said. "When I got hurt, I could have really easily felt like I let my team down, but those guys... did what they had to do. They're fully capable if something happens to me."

Bagnoli, however, while appreciative of the skill and depth of his backfield, feels that having a healthy Ryan does more for his team than meets the eye.

"We had good players last year," he said. "But it's a whole different mindset when you're a defensive coach and you [face] a kid of Ryan's stature, as opposed to him not being there. He's the kind of back that you actually have to gameplan for."

The upcoming season holds many different possibilities, but Quakers fans can look to last year's Ivy League title-clinching victory at Cornell for a glimpse of possible things to come.

In one of of the few games -- if not the only game -- in which both Hoffman and Ryan were healthy and playing to their full potential, Penn's offense dominated the Big Red in the final game of the season, turning what was expected to be a dogfight in the one-game showdown for the Ivy League crown into a 45-15 laugher.

Ryan rushed for 243 yards on 33 carries and notched two touchdowns, and Hoffman gained 330 yards in the air and passed for four touchdowns.

Given good health and good luck, this duo of potent seniors will join the rest of Penn's key returning personnel to make a run at a repeat. Should things indeed break right for Ryan, Hoffman and the rest of the Quakers this year, the other teams in the Ivy League might have but one word on the tips of their tongues.

Scary.

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