PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania football team will kick off the 2022 season on Saturday, hosting Colgate in the first meeting between the Quakers and the Raiders this century.
 
GAME 1 – PENN vs. COLGATE 
Presented by Penn Bookstore
Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022 | 1 p.m.
Franklin Field | Philadelphia
Watch Live on ESPN+ ($)  |  Listen Live (QAN)  |  Live Stats  |  Tickets
Penn Game Notes  |  Colgate Game Notes
 
Penn Football on ESPN+ / Quaker Audio Network (QAN)
Once again this season, all Penn home games and road Ivy League games will be broadcast live on ESPN+, a subscription-based channel. Joe Tordy will call the play-by-play while Coffee Jones provides analysis. Fans can also listen to games through the Quaker Audio Network (PennAthletics.com/audio), where Matt Leon enters his 19th season doing the play-by-play while Hench Murray returns for his 41st season providing color.
 
The Colgate Series
The Quakers and the Raiders are meeting for the ninth time but only the first time this century; the most recent took place back in 1996. In fact, all of the previous games took place from 1982-96, Penn winning five, Colgate winning two, and the teams tying once (27-27 on November 9, 1985). Given that none of the players in today's game were born the last time these teams met, it seems a bit overblown to say Penn rides a three-game winning streak into the contest but the Quakers have won the last three meetings—in 1992 (24-0), 1993 (30-12), and 1996 (38-7).
 
Apropos of Nothing…
Read into this any way you want, but five of the previous eight years Penn played Colgate the Quakers went on to win the Ivy League title.
 
Raiders Road Warriors
The Raiders have put on some serious mileage already this season, Saturday's game being their third road trip so far in 2022 (and by far the shortest of the three). Colgate opened the season at Stanford (a 2,865-mile trip) and fell to the Pac-12 Cardinal, 41-10. Last Saturday, the Raiders traveled to the University of Maine—Hamilton to Orono: 511 miles—and came back from the hinterlands with a 21-16 win over their CAA foe. By comparison, this trip to Philadelphia (248 miles) is a pittance. (Before you ask: yes, they are at home next weekend, hosting Holy Cross in their Patriot League opener.)
 
Preseason Predictions
After finishing second in the Patriot League last year—a far cry from the preseason prediction of seventh—Colgate got a lot more love ahead of this season. The Raiders were picked third in the PL's preseason media poll, behind Holy Cross and Fordham. (Penn's Week 2 opponent, Lafayette, was picked fourth.) Offensive lineman A.J. DeSantis was a preseason All-Patriot League pick by the media. Colgate's quarterback, Michael Brescia, was the 2021 Patriot League Rookie of the Year.
 
The Opener
Penn is 3-3 in season openers under the current George A. Munger Head Coach of Football, Ray Priore. That includes last year, when the Quakers went to Bucknell and rolled past the Bison, 30-6. This is the first time the Red and Blue are starting home since 2018, when they knocked off Bucknell 34-17. (In fact, like this season, Penn opened 2018 with two home games; the Quakers won both, as they also defeated Lehigh that season 30-10.)
 
Penn All Patriot in 2022
Penn will face Patriot League teams in its three non-conference games this season, opening at home with Colgate and Lafayette and then traveling to Georgetown in Week 4. You might be surprised to learn that this will be the first season since 2000 that the Quakers have faced three PL teams. That season, the Quakers opened with a 17-10 loss at Lehigh; came home the next weekend to beat Lafayette, 45-28; then lost at Holy Cross in Week 4, 34-17.
 
Swanstrom Returns
Dan Swanstrom has returned to the coaching staff as the Quakers' new offensive coordinator and Clarence S. Rockwell, VMD Quarterbacks Coach. This is his second stint with the Quakers, as he was Penn's quarterbacks coach and recruiting coordinator from 2014-16 and helped lead the Red and Blue to Ivy titles in 2015 and 2016. Swanstrom returns to University City after a five-year stint as the head coach at Ithaca College, where he led the Bombers to success and posted the highest winning percentage for any coach in program history that coached more than one season. Swanstrom went 32-11 (.744) and his teams registered eight wins in all four seasons in which they took the field.
 
Ivy Predictions
In the Ivy League's annual preseason media poll, announced on August 8, Penn was picked to finish sixth. The Quakers earned 49 voting points from the 16 media members who voted in the poll, two from each school. That put them ahead of Brown (29) and Cornell (27). Harvard and Dartmouth shared the top spot, both of them securing 108 voting points although the Crimson had twice as many first-place votes (8) as the Big Green (4). Princeton, which shared the Ivy title last fall with Dartmouth (both finishing 6-1), was picked third with 105 points and the other four first-place votes. Yale finished fourth in the poll (83 points) and Columbia was selected fifth (67).
 
Preseason All-Ivy
Penn had four players named to the Phil Steele Football Preseason All-Ivy Teams. Offensive linemen Ben Hoitink and Trevor Radosevich were named first-team selections on the offensive side of the ball while defensive back Jaden Key was a first-team pick on the defensive side. Linebacker Jake Heimlicher was a second-team selection. Radosevich (second team) and Heimlicher (honorable mention) earned All-Ivy honors after the 2021 season as did one other returning player, senior defensive lineman Micah Morris (honorable mention).

2022 Captains
The 2022 Penn football captains have been selected and they are senior running back Trey Flowers; senior defensive lineman Jake Heimlicher; senior linebacker Jonathan Melvin; and senior offensive lineman Trevor Radosevich. This is the second year that Heimlicher and Radosevich were voted as captains.