Soisson | Plan on calling home this year

Let me be clear: I’m a football fan.

Growing up in a family that has held season tickets to the Pittsburgh Steelers since before the days of the Steel Curtain, I always followed the NFL and still remember my first game at Three Rivers Stadium.

To be honest though, I never felt connected to a college team.

Maybe it was the distance from my beloved Pittsburgh, but it didn’t take me long to catch onto the Quakers — I remember my first game at Franklin Field, too (a lackluster 14-3 loss to Villanova).

But when Penn won the Ivy championship in the fall of my freshman year after a rocky few seasons, I was hooked.

Admittedly, my timing was good; I enrolled the same year as the Red and Blue’s first undefeated Ivy season in six years. My colleague Chan Park, who arrived a year before me, probably got off on the wrong foot with the Quakers after witnessing a mediocre 5-2 season.

To Mr. Park, the Summer Pennsylvanian sports editor, that first season displayed “not much more than an average team in the Ivies.”

I see it differently.

I appreciate the hard-nose, “smashmouth” football played in the Ancient Eight, especially from the Quakers. It’s smart football, and is about as blue collar as you can get in the Ivy League.

Why wouldn’t Penn football be something to call home about?

Last week Penn Athletics announced the finalized times of all games this season (save Dartmouth). Non-conference games at Franklin Field are slated for Saturday evenings, while the Ivy games will be played on Saturday afternoons.

As optimistic as I am about three Penn games being nationally broadcast on Versus — which will likely soon become NBC’s major sports network following Comcast’s purchase of the company — I initially felt the Quakers could be making an even bigger mark on the national broadcast.

“You guys need to be on primetime!” I said to a friend on the team, who quickly reminded me about the tradition for college games to be played on Saturday afternoons rather than evenings.

Perhaps the 3 p.m. slot on October 15 at Columbia provides the best exposure for Penn and the Ivies. When the Red and Blue play their first game on Versus, they’ll follow on the heels of Big 10 games, with less competition from SEC and Pac-12 games at night. The two remaining Versus games will face competition in the noon slot (TV schedules are yet to be finalized for the biggest BCS matchups).

Regardless of the competition, Saturday afternoon is primetime for college football.

If all goes well for coach Al Bagnoli and his Quakers, Versus may be the channel to watch come November 12 when Penn travels to Cambridge, Mass. for its penultimate game of the season. Considering Harvard senior quarterback Collier Winters’ recent recognition at the Manning Passing Academy — working as a camp counselor, he topped Stanford’s Andrew Luck and 35 other college and pro quarterbacks as the most accurate passer — and Penn’s recent league domination, this game may decide the Ivy champion, or at least a share of it.

So if 808 program wins, a league-best 12 outright Ivy titles, a 15-game Ivy win streak, and two straight championships aren’t enough to call home about, I’m not sure what is.

But just to be safe, why not make it three straight?

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.