This feature was originally published in the football game-day program for Yale on October 22, 2022.

by Marc Narducci
 
The most obvious conclusion of the 2002 Ivy League football season is that the prognosticators blew it.
 
Big time!
 
Entering the season, the University of Pennsylvania football team wasn't exactly the hunted—the Quakers were picked to finish fourth in the Ivy League's preseason poll. Instead, Harvard was the preseason favorite while Princeton was selected second and Brown third.
 
That would all quickly change.
 
Penn would end up going 9-1 overall in 2002 and running through the Ivy League with a perfect 7-0 mark. The only loss was a 17-3 defeat to nationally ranked Villanova. The only other relatively close game was a 24-21 home win against nationally ranked Lehigh.
 
Celebrating their 20th anniversary, the 2002 team is one of three Ivy League championship squads being honored today as Penn hosts Yale. (The others are the 1982 and 2012 teams.)
 
It should be quite a reunion.
 
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How dominant was Penn's 2002 Ivy League run? Every Ivy League game was won by at least three touchdowns; the Quakers' closest game was 21 points, a 41-20 triumph at Yale. Penn's average margin of victory was 30.1 points.
 
"The thing that stands out about 2002 is we would build up big leads and put teams away," said Matt Dukes, the team's starting center and an honorable mention All-Ivy selection that season. "It was pure dominance. That's the best way to put it."
 
In fact, some of the best competition came during practice, when the offense and defense pushed each other to the absolute limit.
 
"It was intense," recalled Travis Belden, a first-team All-Ivy linebacker that season. "We were physical, and things would get chippy, but the minute we stepped off the field everything changed."
 
After practice they were back to being tight-knit teammates.
 
"We had the ability to switch it on and off when we needed to," Belden said. "It allowed us to bring intensity to practice, and everybody knew it was business and not personal."
 
Both the offense and the defense, in theory, never faced anybody as good as they would encounter every day in practice.
 
***
 
In all fairness, one could see why Harvard was picked in the preseason poll. The Crimson were the defending Ivy League champion after going 7-0 with an unbeaten overall mark in 2001. The fourth-place selection for Penn, however, was mystifying.
 
It's not like Penn hadn't enjoyed recent success. The Quakers had won the Ivy title in 2000, then suffered their only loss to Harvard—by only a touchdown, 28-21—during an 8-1, 6-1 season in 2001.
 
As a result, the Quakers entered 2002 a confident team. And they didn't have to manufacture motivation by being snubbed by the preseason pollsters.
 
"Quite frankly, I don't remember us as a team paying much attention to that ranking," said safety Vince Alexander, who shared the Ivy League lead with five interceptions and was a third-team Associated Press All-America selection in 2002. "The majority of us thought it was a joke and we didn't need it to be motivated, we had a lot of trust."
 
Not to mention plenty of talent.
 
One reason there may have been doubt from the outside about the Quakers' ability to contend for the title is that Penn did lose some key players from the 2001 team to graduation, including All-Ivy quarterback Gavin Hoffman. In all, Penn graduated 16 starters and 22 seniors from 2001 so there were plenty of key positions to fill.
 
"We had a lot of kids graduate in 2001, and people look at that when they pick those things before the season," said current Penn head coach Ray Priore, who was the Red and Blue's defensive coordinator in 2002. "That was a special group in 2002 with special young men."
 
The new quarterback was Mike Mitchell, who would himself become a first-team All-Ivy selection. He completed 65 percent of his passes for 2,803 yards and 20 touchdowns.
 
Even though he was a first-year starter, Mitchell's success was no surprise to those who saw him every day in practice during his days as a reserve.
 
"As a young player, he ran our scout team. That tends to be a way for your defense to gain some confidence, and instead he was out there throwing touchdown passes," Priore said. "I said, 'Mike you are killing me!' But we knew that he was going to have a lot of success."
 
This offense, which was second in 1-AA (now Football Championship Subdivision, or FCS) in scoring offense, averaging 36.3 points, lived by the pass.
 
Rob Milanese caught 85 passes for 1,112 yards and eight touchdowns. Erik Bolinder added 47 receptions for 592 yards and three scores, and Dan Casties contributed 24 receptions for 369 yards and six touchdowns.
 
The leading ball carrier was Stephen Faulk, who rushed for 467 yards (3.6 average) and 10 touchdowns. Faulk was a second-team All-Ivy performer—impressive, considering the year before he earned the same honors playing defense.
 
The offensive line was punishing. Guard Chris Clark was a first-team All-Ivy selection. Tackle Ben Noll was a second-team choice. Noll ended up spending parts of two seasons in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys. Tackle Chris Kupchik joined Dukes as an honorable mention selection. The other starter was guard Dylan D'Ascendis, a savvy performer who specialized in pummeling players on downfield blocks. Tight end Matt Michaleski contributed significantly to the run game with his blocking.
 
"Matt Michaleski was a great receiving tight end, but more than any tight end I ever played with he loved to block," Dukes said. "He was essentially an honorary member of the offensive line."
 
Placekicker Peter Veldman was another big part of the offense. He made 12 of 15 field goals and all 43 PATs in earning first-team All-Ivy honors.
 
The defense was unforgiving. Penn finished second in the nation in rushing defense, allowing just 55.8 yards rushing per game and a miniscule 1.9 yards per carry.
 
Linebacker Steve Lhotak led the team in tackles (64), tackles for loss (16) and sacks (7). Penn intercepted 20 passes. While Alexander's five led the way, linebacker Pat McManus added four. Cornerback Fred Plaza, who was second on the team with 63 tackles, also had three interceptions.
 
Safety Kevin Stefanski, who would earn honorable mention All-Ivy honors, was another key member of the secondary. Of course, he is more well known by his current job as head coach of the Cleveland Browns.
 
"Kevin Stefanski was too smart for his own good," Belden said recently, laughing. "But the best thing about him was his willingness to stick his nose in there and his toughness. He had a hit in the Princeton game that was one for the ages and really set the tone."
 
That 44-13 win over the Tigers came in Week 8 and set the stage for one of the biggest and certainly most publicized games in Penn history: a showdown against Harvard, with the Ivy League title on the line at Franklin Field.
 
The event was so big that ESPN's "College Gameday" traveled to Franklin Field for its pregame show. That in itself was historic: it marked the first time ESPN's wildly popular college football pregame show had visited a game featuring 1-AA teams.
 
Both teams were 5-0 in the Ivy League, and the winner would earn at least a share of the title. ESPN's Lee Corso, decked out in a Ben Franklin outfit, predicted Penn would win.
 
It would go down as one of his best predictions.
 
ESPN's presence brought plenty of excitement to the Philadelphia area in general and Penn's campus in particular.
 
A dogfight was expected. Harvard entered the game sixth in total offense. Instead, the game itself was a lot like every other Ivy League contest that season for the Quakers as they steamrolled Harvard, 44-9.
 
The Penn-Harvard game wasn't played in ideal weather conditions, and rain held the crowd down to 18,630 at Franklin Field, but it didn't lessen the enthusiasm, especially with what was at stake.
 
The game was close for a brief time, with Penn holding an unusual 3-2 advantage in the first quarter. However, with five minutes left in the period, a defensive play for the ages turned the momentum Penn's way for good.
 
Alexander leveled Harvard quarterback Neil Rose, forcing a fumble that bounced right to defensive end Chris Pennington. A local product from La Salle High School, Pennington was one of the team's defensive leaders. He momentarily turned into an All-Ivy running back, rumbling 51 yards for the touchdown.
 
Penn never looked back, stretching its lead to 34-2 by halftime.
 
"I remember that play pretty vividly and it is one of my best memories of college," said Pennington, who was a unanimous first-team All-Ivy selection in 2002. "Vince came on a blitz and made an unbelievable play. The ball popped up into my stomach and it was probably the fastest 50 yards I ever ran in my life."
 
Alexander, who spent time in NFL training camps with the New York Jets and Arizona Cardinals and is now an attorney in Miami, has remained close friends with Pennington over the years and often provides sone good-natured ribbing about his touchdown.
 
"I always tell Chris he should be very grateful for me because he stole what should have been my touchdown," Alexander said, laughing. "It was an amazing play all-around."
 
And by halftime, with Penn in full command, there was no longer any suspense about the outcome.
 
"I remember at halftime, it was surreal, the game in my mind was over," Dukes, the starting center, said. "We went into the game with the expectation that it would be a dogfight. They were extremely talented, and for us to inflict that type of punishment on them was a tremendous feeling because they were a great football team."
 
Some teams might have been ripe for a letdown the following week, but not coach Al Bagnoli's Quakers. Penn clinched the outright Ivy League title the next week with a 31-0 win at Cornell, the shutout an appropriate cap to one of the most dominant defensive seasons the Ivy League has ever seen.
 
Two decades later, the thrill of winning that championship hasn't waned.
 
"I look at that team now and realize I was a part of something special," said Alexander, the star safety. "There was a tight-knit bond between the players, both on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, but also with the coaches. It was such a fun season and something we are all very proud to be part of."