The 1997 Penn Quakers football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

during the

1997 NCAA Division I-AA football season The 1997 NCAA Division I-AA football season, part of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I-AA level, began in August 1997, and concluded with the 1997 NCAA Divisi ...

. Penn finished last in the

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...

after forfeiting five wins.

Background

During its sixth year under head coach

Al Bagnoli Eldo P. "Al" Bagnoli (born January 20, 1953) is an American football coach and former player. He was recently the head football coach at Columbia University, a position he assumed from 2015 until 2022. Bagnoli served as a head football coach at ...

, the Quakers outscored opponents 250 to 113 and compiled a 6–4 record on the field. It later forfeited five victories, however, yielding a final record of 1–9. John Bishop was the team captain. Penn agreed to forfeit all of its Ivy League wins after an internal investigation showed that All-Ivy

defensive tackle A defensive tackle (DT) is a position in American football that will typically line up on the line of scrimmage, opposite one of the offensive guards, however he may also line up opposite one of the tackles. Defensive tackles are typically the la ...

Mitch Marrow had not been a full-time student during the football season, and was thus ineligible to play on the team. The decision was announced in early January 1998, a month and a half after the season ended. This decision had a profound impact on the league standings. Penn had gone 5–2 against Ivy competition, outscoring its conference rivals 149 to 117. At season's end, Penn was reported as the third-place team. After the forfeits, record books show Penn with an 0–7 league record, finishing in last place. Penn played its home games at Franklin Field on the university's campus in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Schedule

References

{{Penn Quakers football navbox Penn Penn Quakers football seasons Penn Football