Victory lap

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.”

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