Al Bagnoli

University of Pennsylvania

Expectations were lower than usual for the Penn Quakers going into the 2002 football season. The team had graduated 22 players, including 16 starters and 11 All-Ivy selections, from the previous year. It appeared coach Al Bagnoli faced a rebuilding task, maybe even a losing season.

Instead, Bagnoli turned his leftovers into one of the most dominating teams in Ivy League history. The Quakers went undefeated in league play (7-0) and outscored their opponents 284-73, an average margin of 30.1 points, the most ever in Ivy League play. Their scoring average of 40.6 points per game was also the highest in Ivy history.

It marked Bagnoli's fifth league championship in 11 seasons at Penn and earned him the Maxwell Football Club's fifth annual Tri-State Coach of the Year Award. His overall record at Penn is 76-32, a winning percentage of .704, and he is second in school history behind Hall of Famer George Woodruff for career victories.

When Bagnoli was hired at Penn in 1992, the football team was coming off three consecutive losing seasons. In his first year, he lifted the Quakers to a 7-3 overall mark and a 5-2 league record, good for a third place finish. It was the second-best one-season turnaround in school history.

Bagnoli topped that the next season by winning the first of his Ivy League championships with a team that went undefeated (10-0 overall) and boasted the NCAA's top-ranked scoring defense. He followed that with another perfect season (9-0) in 1994.

Bagnoli's 2002 team overwhelmed its opponents on both sides of the ball and finished the season ranked 16th among Division 1-AA schools. After the Quakers clinched the Ivy League championship with a 31-0 victory over Cornell, Bagnoli was asked if this team, which was picked to finish no higher than fourth in the league, was the best he had ever coached.

"It's got to be right up there when you combine offense, defense and kicking game," Bagnoli said. "As I've told a lot of people, it's going to take a heck of a team to beat us. Our kids have played very, very well over an extended period of time."

The numbers certainly support that. In 2002, the Quakers set an Ivy League record for rushing defense, limiting their opponents to just 43.6 yards per game. That bettered the previous record set by Harvard (51.6 yards per game) in 1999. Their pass offense ranked seventh in Division 1-AA with an average of 296.2 yards per game.

Bagnoli made his coaching debut at Union College in 1982 where he led the school to its first winning season in 12 years with an 8-1 record. The following year, he had Union in the Division III title game and was named East Region Coach of the Year. He posted 10 consecutive winning seasons at Union and his overall record of 162-51 and .761 winning percentage rank third among active I-AA head coaches.

Bagnoli, 50, is a native of East Haven, Conn., and a graduate of Central Connecticut State.