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.