Penn takes on Harvard for all the marbles

Penn has not won an Ivy League football championship since 2003, when it won its second in a row.

Harvard (6-2, 5-0 Ivy) is the two-time defending conference winner, looking for a three-peat tomorrow at noon when it welcomes the Quakers (6-2, 5-0) to Boston.

Add to that the fact that this weekend’s contest will­ decide the Ivy champ, and it’s no surprise that winning the crown will be on everyone’s mind.

Except, apparently, for the players and the coaches.

Penn coach Al Bagnoli insists that his team’s focus is on its opponent and not on some shiny piece of brass, or whatever they make trophies out of nowadays.

“We certainly have the greatest respect for the Harvard program,” Bagnoli said. “They’ve been easily the most consistent program in the league within the last five or ten years.”

And consistency, Bagnoli claims, is an extremely important factor in success on the gridiron.

Consistency in important positions — of which the Quakers now have some semblance, thanks to senior quarterback Kyle Olson — as well as overall consistency have been big concerns for the Red and Blue all year.

But with two games left in the season, Bagnoli and his players seem to have settled into a groove, finding that consistency on both offense and defense.

Harvard coach Tim Murphy agrees.

“Our kids know that Penn is always going to be there [at the end of the season],” Murphy said in the weekly Ivy media teleconference. “You’ve got to play your best to beat the best and if you don’t do that against a team like Penn you’re simply not going to achieve those goals [of winning a championship].”

Both coaches are lauding their opponents so heavily, it seems too complimentary to be sincere.

But in a way, it kind of is sincere.

Penn has the No. 1 rushing defense and the second-ranked total defense in the Football Championship Subdivision.

Harvard’s rushing attack is best in the Ivies, 15th nationally.

And that’s not all.

Harvard’s deadliness, Bagnoli contends, lies in the fact that they don’t have any single dominant strength.

They are consistently good, through and throughout.

“They do everything well,” Bagnoli said. “I’m not sure they do things unbelievable … but collectively, from top to bottom, they’re really solid.”

This in turn makes it more difficult to pinpoint and eliminate aspects of the Crimson’s offensive and defensive attacks because there are no glaring errors in any facet of Murphy’s team.

Murphy doesn’t compliment every part of his adversary’s squad, as Bagnoli does, but rather points to rushing, both running on offense and stopping the run on defense, as the Quakers’ biggest weapon.

With two teams that both bring so much to the table, each possession will become that much more important.

Every time Olson and the Quakers get the ball, they will need to make sure they do not waste their opportunities.

This is just as true, if not more so, for Harvard quarterback Collier Winters, who can’t expect the Red and Blue’s defense to be anything less than wild-eyed, explosive and savage.

So holding on to the ball when they have it, and having their quarterbacks manage the game well, are two of Bagnoli and Murphy’s biggest concerns.

“On Saturday, the team that wins the ball control ratio will win this game,” Murphy said.

Bagnoli echoes Murphy’s sentiments.

“The team that does a better job protecting the football will win the game,” he said.

Whoever is able to do that can start polishing up the trophy case.

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