Spring Preview: Penn

Garton and Penn's Job #1: Stay healthy


Spring practice has begun... at Penn. The defending champion Quakers are the first to start the crucial offseason workouts and their spring game will be on April 10th.
(Columbia's spring game is Friday NIGHT April 23rd).

The Quakers already have some breaking news coming out of their camp. Running backs Matt Hamscher and Bradford Blackmon may move over to defensive side, or at least try to play both ways in the secondary. Hamscher and Blackmon have both battled injuries through their careers so far, but Penn is apparently trying to cover all its bases since its two 1st Team All Ivy corners, Chris Wynn and Jonathan Moore, are graduating.

This is an obvious vote of confidence in rising sophomore running back Lyle Marsh, who also battled injuries a bit last year but was impressive as a freshman in 2009.

But let's face it, defense won the championship for Penn last season. The 2009 All Ivy Defense reads like a Quaker press release. But in addition to the loss of Moore and Wynn, Penn is also graduating Joe Goniprow and Jake Lewko who were also All Ivy 1st Teamers.

I do think Penn will be better offensively in 2010, provided the Quakers avoid the rash of injuries that hurt their offense last year. They have all their starting offensive linemen returning, and three of them were All Ivy. That's a compelling reason to believe Penn will be able to score or at least mount long drives this coming season.

But the defense will almost certainly not be as dominant next season. It'll be darn good, with a bunch of rising seniors making 2nd Team and Honorable Mention All Ivy in 2009, but just not as tough. Considering how close the key wins over Harvard and Brown were for Penn, even a slightly weaker defense could derail the Quakers' chances.

Coach Al Bagnoli pointed out the obvious in an interview this week when he said the Quakers will need to focus on improving the passing game this spring. Other than Brown, just about every Ivy team has been moving away from a pro-style passing game. And it doesn't seem like Penn has the horses to change that trend. If QB Keiffer Garton stays healthy, there shouldn't be too much of a need to change up what worked for Penn last year. The only wildcard is if the Quaker defense really takes a step down and Penn finds itself well behind early in several games and is forced to throw the ball more. I just don't see that happening right now.

A lot of the preparation in this league is based on what the top teams are doing. Harvard has been Penn's focus for years now and the Crimson look somewhat like Penn in that they will also be leaning on rising sophomore Trevor Scales to power the offense in 2010. But unlike the Quakers, Harvard has transfer Andrew Hatch from LSU waiting in the wings to show what he can do against Ivy secondaries. That might be producing a bit of "passing game envy" in Philadelphia.

A QB wildcard is rising sophomore Bill Ragone but he too, seems to be a talented runner with perhaps a little less to offer as a pure passer than a Hatch or a Kyle Newhall Caballero at Brown. I also think Ragone won't play much unless Garton gets injured again.

Another wildcard is the incoming freshmen class, which won't be participating in spring practice of course. But wide receivers and QB's don't usually play as freshmen under Bagnoli. Marsh was a running back and even he needed some injuries to other players to climb the depth chart.

Overall, Penn has to like its chances. Even with the key defenders graduating, this is a very experienced and talented group for a defending champ. If I were Bagnoli, I wouldn't push too hard on creating a deep passing attack and focus more on getting that secondary ready and the linebacker corps accustomed to whoever takes over as their coach.