Penn Quakers (1982)

 In our last post, we looked at the 2002 Northeastern Huskies, a team picked to finish next-to-last in its league but wound up sharing a title. Today, we look at another team picked to be a dead-ended and became a front-runner instead: The 1982 Penn Quakers, who not just won the Ivy League title, but flipped the switch from toiling as one of college football's losingest programs to one of its finest.

Recent history had not been kind to Penn: The Quakers had gone 4-33-1 from 1978-81, capped by a 1-9 campaign under first-year coach Jerry Berndt in which they surrendered 324 points, the most in school history. No one expected anything to change in '82: Penthouse, that noted gridiron periodical, said Penn was "like a thoroughbred with four shattered legs; destroying it would be an act of kindness." Sports Illustrated (remember SI?) picked the Quakers to go 1-9 for a third straight year.

But on opening day, Penn crushed defending co-champion Dartmouth 21-0 for its first road win in five years, and the Quakers never looked back. And for a closer look ...

The media guide cover. Football at Pennsylvania 
was very, very good in 1982.

The Team: Penn finished the season 7-3 overall, 5-2 Ivy to share the title with Dartmouth and Harvard (the Quakers defeated the Crimson, too), only the second championship in Penn history and its first since 1959. A 23-0 season-ending loss to Cornell thwarted Penn's bid for an outright title. "It's nice," running back Steve Flacco said during the season, according to Richard Goldstein's Ivy League Autumns. "People say 'hi' to you now. Before, they were laughing behind your back."

It's celebration time as Penn clinches a share of the Ivy League title.

The Players: Flacco led the team with 466 yards rushing, while quarterback Gary Vera threw for 1,771 yards and 13 touchdowns. They were helped by first-team all-Ivy linemen John McInerney and Chris DiMaria. Mike Christiani (LB) and Dave Shulman (K) also make the first team, while Flacco, Jeff Schulte (TE, 25 catches, 6 TDs), Scott Boggio (DE), Dave Smith (DT), Matt Finn (LB) and Tim Chambers (DB) made the second team.

The Coach: Jerry Berndt, a Dartmouth assistant  for much of the 1970s, went 29-18-2 at Penn from 1981-85 -- half those losses were in '81 -- winning four Ivy titles along the way. He coached two Asa Bushnell Cup winners (Ivy player of the year) and 41 all-Ivy selections, 21 on the first team. Later stints at Rice and Temple proved not to be as fruitful, but his time at Penn ushered in a winning culture that has yet to subside.

"We’ll show ’em," Jerry Berndt told the Daily Pennsylvanian 
about the dire predictions for Penn in 1982. And he wasn't full off hot air.

The Uniforms: Berndt did more than instill a winning attitude at Penn; he installed some winning uniforms, as well. Berndt ditched the clunky, clashing style of 1979-80 and replaced it with something more streamlined. Navy blue was restored as the predominant color for the first since the mid-1960s; the classic "P" appeared on the helmets for the first time (sorta-kinda like what the Quakers wear now); and the ensemble was completed with sharp navy jerseys and white pants. I'm normally not crazy about the jersey number on a dark jersey being something other than white or a light color, but it works here. The Quakers wore this style, with a few alterations, into the 1990s.

The Fallout: Fallout? What fallout?!? Penn has been one of the dominant Ivy League teams for close to 40 years, and it all started with this bunch. The Quakers won three more Ancient Eight titles under Berndt from 1983-85, running the table in league play (7-0) in '84. As of this writing, Penn has won or shared 18 Ivy titles (tied with Dartmouth for the most) ... 17 since the 1982 team shocked the league.

Northeastern Huskies (2002)

I hate to drag the phrase "fake news" here, but let's face it: Preseason polls are generally "fake news." They're mostly based on how teams did last season, with no regard to who's returning, who's left, etc. Maybe it's because I'm steaming that my Black Bears were picked to finish ninth in the CAA preseason poll. (If Maine finishes ninth or lower in 2021, I promise to do a post on the worst team in Maine history, and I think I know which one it is, by far.)

OK, rant over. Let's look at a team that was picked to finish next-to-last in its league in August, and celebrated a league title in November: The 2002 Northeastern Huskies, the only championship team in the program's 77-year history.

The Team: Picked to finish 10th out of 11 teams in the Atlantic 10 (formerly Yankee Conference, now CAA), Northeastern shocked the league by going 10-3 overall, 7-2 in league play to share the A-10 title with defending co-champ Maine (which was picked second in the preseason poll). The Huskies shut out their first two opponents, including a 31-0 shellacking of I-A (FBS) Ohio U. The two league losses were to Delaware and William & Mary. (Oddly, Northeastern and Maine didn't play each other in '02 despite their geographic closeness.) The season ended with a 29-24 loss to Fordham in the NCAA I-AA (FCS) tournament, only the second postseason game in Northeastern's history and the first since a 27-6 loss to East Carolina in the 1963 Eastern Bowl.

The 2003 Northeastern media guide showcases
many of the stars from the '02 season.

The Players: Running back Tim Gale set a single-season school record with 16 touchdowns and tied another with 96 points and was named first-team all A-10, as was OL John McDonald. In the air, quarterback Shawn Brady (isn't that a character on Days of Our Lives?) threw 16 touchdown passes. Linebacker Liam Ezekiel set a school record with 145 tackles and one of three Huskies named all A-10 on defense, along with DL Steve Anzalone and DB Art Smith. Kicker Miro Kesic (first-team all A-10), scored 85 points, fifth most in school history. 

The Coach: I wrote about Don Brown in this post several months back. These days, he's the defensive coordinator at the University of Arizona. (Triviata: Brown started his career in 1978 as an assistant as Hartford (Vt.) High School, a couple TD passes from where I used to live, and was later defensive coordinator at Dartmouth College.)

A 2002 Northeastern program.

The Uniforms: After wearing some pretty ugly unis in 2001, Northeastern went to a look more reminiscent of what it wore in the 90s, with all black at home and all white on the road. The rather busy helmet logo from '01 remained. (The Huskies switched to a simpler block "N" in '04.) 

The Fallout: The 2003 Huskies were picked to win the A-10 (see what I mean about predictions based upon the previous year's results?), and Street & Smith (remember them?) had Northeastern No. 1 in the nation. While the Huskies failed to meet those lofty forecasts, they still finished 8-4 and were ranked Nos. 20 and 19 in the final polls while missing the NCAA tourney. Northeastern never had another winning record before the program was shut down in 2009.