Kern: Penn QB Torgersen loaded with weaponry

ALEK TORGERSEN thinks he has it pretty good. Not that there's anything wrong with that. When you're a quarterback, can you really ever have enough weapons to call your very own?

If the Penn senior takes to the air, he can throw to Justin Watson, who's only one of the top receivers in FCS. And whenever Watson's drawing extra coverage, which is much of the time, sophomore Christian Pearson has emerged as a pretty decent second option. And if the Quakers go with their ground game, which they've been doing more often because they can, a finally healthy Tre Solomon has responded with four consecutive 100-yard rushing efforts, including three straight where he got a career high. And if he had to play more in the second half of last week's 42-7 win at Yale, that would have become four in a row too.

"I consider myself one of the luckiest quarterbacks in the (Ivy) league," said Torgersen, a 6-3, 230-pounder from Huntingdon Beach, Calif., who is going to leave West Philly as one of the best to play his position. "My sophomore year, we really didn't have a running game, and the passsing game was kind of iffy. It was a lot of short stuff. Now, it kind of takes the pressure off me to make extraordinary plays. I just have to put the ball in Justin's area and I know he's going to come down with it. And that's opened things up for Tre."

Still, somebody has to pull the trigger. Second-year coach Ray Priore, whose team is trying to repeat as champions, doesn't feel his offense could be in any better hands.

"He knows what we're supposed to be doing, and where the ball should go," said Priore, whose Quakers (4-2, 3-0) host Brown (2-4, 1-2) Saturday afternoon, with Princeton (4-2, 2-1) and Harvard (5-1, 3-0) on deck. "We trust he's going to make the right decisions. He understands situations, what we want to get into. So we're on the same page. That's opened up our opportunities.

"He's a pretty confident kid. But his personality is different. He's very laid-back. Nothing really riles him. If he scores a touchdown, you'll see him get excited. But he's a slow and steady type person. His pulse rate doesn't go up with a completion or because of this or that. Yet he's a leader. He sets the tone for everyone else out there. He could light it up, if that's what we needed to do. But we're doing what we have to do to win games. We're playing really good team football right now. And he's obviously a big part of that."

Torgersen is 106-for-164 for 1,221 yards, with 12 TDs and two interceptions. It's the picks that he remembers most, since they still bother him. Maybe because he had one in each of the early losses.

"When you're a quarterback, that's what people look at," said Torgersen, who's the team's second-leading rusher with 277 yards on 66 attempts. "You have to take the responsibility. When we win, you get a lot of praise. When we don't, you have to deal with that. It's no different than high school and Pop Warner. My mom can't sit in the stands anymore. She gets angry when she hears people talking bad about me. She had to sit back and watch. But that's what I love about it. There is a lot of pressure. If you don't perform, your team doesn't perform. That's something I've been taught my whole life. I definitely enjoy it. It's not the easiest position, but you're at the center of what's happening on every play."

He's second at Penn in all-time passing yards, some 1,500 behind Gavin Hoffman (1999-2001). He needs four TD passes to surpass Hoffman's record of 50. He needs 381 yards to surpass him in total offense. And he's four-tenths back in completion percentage. He'll also finish second in attempts and completions. He already owns the mark for TDs responsible for, with 63 (rushing and passing).

"In the future I'll look back on that as something cool that I was able to accomplish in my time at Penn," Torgersen said. "But they don't really show how good the team was. Championships are forever. That's more a testament to what you're about. It's frustrating when you lose. Especially when you know you should have done better. Those are definitely low moments.

"I only have four games left in my career here. I'm just trying to have as much fun as I can the next four weeks. Your senior year's supposed to be fun. I want us to go out on a high note, with these guys I probably won't play football with again. That other stuff is nice, but I'm not really looking at that right now. I can do that later, when I'm old."

The Quakers are averaging 35.5 points in their wins.

"Just from an experience standpoint, there are times when (offensive coordinator John Reagan) will call the play and I'll love what's going on," Torgersen said. "We'll see things the same way. That's just our offense. When things are working, they're working. Sometimes we make it look easier than it is. In our two-minute drill at Yale we scored in 20 seconds in three plays. And you're like, 'This is not how it's supposed to be.' It was almost too good."

@mikekerndn