King James Bible: Quakers Could've Won It All

Coach Al Bagnoli, your Penn team just defeated Harvard, clinched the outright Ivy title for the second year in a row and cleared the final major hurdle on its quest for an undefeated season. What are you going to do now?

You’re not going to Disney World and you’re sure as hell not going to the playoffs.

“I don’t want to beat a dead horse,” Bagnoli said. “We can’t go on. It’s not logical, I have no idea why, no one has explained why. In my lifetime I’m not sure it’s ever going to happen, but we’ll keep pushing for it and see what happens.”

Coach, you seem a bit frustrated. But with a team like yours, who could blame you for being upset at not having the opportunity to go on.

Coming out of the weekend, Penn remains one of only two unbeaten teams in all of Division I-AA—the only other being playoff-bound Colgate. Both the ESPN and Sports Network polls have the Quakers ranked in the top 10. This Penn squad is the strongest Ivy League team in recent history and has led the conference’s charge back into the national spotlight.

Yet, next week, after an expected slaughtering of Cornell at Franklin Field, the Quakers will be forced to walk away from its undefeated season without truly testing its ability on the main stage.

How far could this team have gone? Would Penn have been able to advance to the I-AA title game in Chattanooga, Tenn.? For argument’s sake, let’s take a look at a likely playoff bracket and see just how far our fellow Ivy leaguers could have advanced on a national level had the Ancient Eight presidents lifted the post-season ban.

The I-AA playoffs involve 16 teams—eight automatic conference winners and eight at-large teams—split into four regions. The best team in each region is seeded and is guaranteed home field advantage for its first two games and the other three teams are matched up primarily by proximity to each other.

Currently, in the Northeast portion of the bracket, Penn would have qualified as the Ivy champion, Colgate as the Patriot League champion and Delaware as the Atlantic 10 champion. UMass would be the at large team with a 9-2 overall record.

By virtue of its wins over UMass and Navy, Delaware would be the top-seeded team in the Northeast.

The Quakers would travel to Delaware for their first-round game. The Blue Hens’ only loss this season came to Northeastern, who fell miserably at the hands of Harvard. Penn beat Harvard, so by the extended transitive property, I’ll give the edge to the Quakers on the road.

Penn would then advance to the quarterfinals to take on the Colgate-UMass winner. This game would probably take place at Franklin Field, due to the selection committee’s affinity for picking the best facilities as sites for playoff games.

Since Penn’s senior class has never lost there, I’ll pick them to keep the tradition alive and advance to the semifinals.

Assuming that the other seeded teams hold serve in their regions, the Quakers’ semifinal match up would most likely come against Wofford. The Terriers’ regular season finale was a 7-6 victory over Furman in which Wofford quarterback Trey Rodgers completed 4 passes for 19 yards. Penn usually puts more than six points on the board in the first five minutes of a ball game, so I’ll give the Quakers the edge by a few touchdowns.

The last hurdle for Penn would be a title bout with No. 1 McNeese St. The Cowboys have won their last two games at home against unranked opponents by a paltry seven points. I’d wager that the Quakers could keep the game close as well, and who knows, maybe even pull off the jaw-dropping upset.

I’m not guaranteeing that if given the opportunity Penn would win the national title this year. Championships require talent, smart coaching, and a lot of luck. This Quaker team definitely has the talent and coaching to be competitive against any team in I-AA. But whether or not it would get the bounces necessary to leave Chattanooga with the championship trophy can never be certain. The only certainty is this—if you’re not allowed to compete, you’ll never be able to win.

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.