Football Supplement | After cameo, Penn football's Torgersen is ready for his closeup

A few minutes into the halftime break of Penn football’s season finale against Cornell last year, a pair of scouts from the New York Giants and a scout from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers packed up their things and left a cold and drafty Franklin Field behind.

They had been on campus to take a look at Big Red quarterback Jeff Mathews, who would later latch on to the Indianapolis Colts’ practice squad in late August.

It’s a shame those scouts left so early. If they had stayed just an hour or so more, they would have been able to witness the first game action of the next potentially great quarterback in the Ivy League.

With the game seemingly all but over in the fourth quarter, then-freshman Alek Torgersen trotted in for Ryan Becker and promptly tossed two touchdown passes to bring the Quakers to the brink of pulling off an incredible comeback.

Now, 10 months after that November afternoon, the Red and Blue’s unquestioned starter is out to prove that his performance was no fluke.

Torgersen was a virtual unknown to Penn fans in 2013, when he sat fourth on the depth chart behind Billy Ragone (graduated), Ryan Becker (graduated) and Adam Strouss (converted to wide receiver) following a failed bid for the punting job. His Pennathletics.com biography even listed an incorrect spelling of his name — “Alex Torgerson.”

But after he completed two fourth-quarter touchdown drives in 0:31 and 1:55, respectively, everyone knew the name of the Huntington Beach, Calif., native.

Even coach Al Bagnoli was left breathless — by his standards, at least.

“We were looking for a spark,” Bagnoli said postgame. “He acquitted himself very well and put us in a position where we had a chance to pull one out when maybe it didn’t look that way 15 minutes earlier.”

The Quakers came up short that afternoon, falling 42-41 after the would-be game-tying extra point was blocked. But the stage had been set for Torgersen to seize the starting job in 2014.

Despite making the most out of his brief 2013 cameo, Torgersen faced an open competition over the spring and summer for the chance to succeed Ragone as Penn’s field general.

Senior Patton Chillura — who missed all of last year due to injury — and junior Andrew Lisa certainly made their cases.

But it was Torgersen who separated himself over the summer, demonstrating the physical tools that Penn’s coaching staff keeps praising.

“We haven’t had a pure thrower since ... you’d have to go all the way back probably to Mike Mitchell in the early 2000s,” Bagnoli said. “[Torgerson’s] got that rare ability to throw balls accurately. Short, intermediate, long, he throws it with great touch.

“He has a rifle.”

There’s much more to the quarterback position, of course, than the ability to throw a tight spiral. The mental strain of the job — making pre-snap reads, identifying coverages — has felled plenty of prospects in the past. The best way to improve is through game experience, something that Torgersen — and the rest of Penn’s signal callers — lacks.

But the sophomore isn’t daunted by the huge step up in playing time.

“[Quarterbacks coach Dan] Swanstrom has done a very good job when we go in the film room,” Torgersen said. “He takes us in, breaks everything down, helps us out a lot, goes through our reads and progressions and I’m learning a lot from him.”

Torgersen won’t be the only new face associated with Penn’s offense this season. The offensive line features three new starters. Larry Woods — the quarterbacks coach for 22 seasons — has retired. In his stead has stepped Swanstrom, who spent the past six seasons at Division III Johns Hopkins.

Coaching at the D-I level for the first time, Swanstrom has liked what he’s seen so far from his charges.

“The good part is, I got to be with them in the spring,” he said. “They’re talented kids, and we’ve just got to find out what happens when we turn the lights on and see if what they do in practice translates to the actual game experience."

There may not be another Billy Ragone — who leaves Penn with his name attached to three Ivy titles — or Ryan Becker.

But Torgersen doesn’t need to be either of those players to be successful. And for his part, he’s honored to have sat behind the two veterans and learned as much as he did.

“Billy and Ryan are awesome. They were great guys, great people to learn from, great mentors,” Torgersen said. “You take aspects of all your predecessors’ games, you hope you can take that in. Billy, maybe, with his feet. Beck with his attitude in the film room.

“You take that, put that in your game, and work it out.”

And whatever magic Torgersen is able to come up with will keep Penn’s offense from missing a beat.

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