Penn's Bagnoli still himself in final home game of career

A handshake wasn't quite sufficient. Harvard coach Tim Murphy started with the shake, and then he wrapped an arm around the great rival of his own career, lingering, saying the usual things, except this was different.

"I had an opportunity to talk to him at length yesterday - it's hard on game day," Harvard's coach said of his last conversation with a man who was coaching the last of 23 years' worth of games at Franklin Field. Murphy then said of Al Bagnoli: "He is the standard by which they'll measure all other coaches in this league."

Does that sound like polite hyperbole? Read the start of the Penn coach's bio: top active wins leader in all of FCS football, with the second-highest winning percentage in Ivy League history. The only Ivy coach to win nine outright titles. The winningest coach in Penn's 137 years of football.

Make it 138 as soon as Penn plays one more game next weekend at Cornell.

"It's just been an amazing journey, to be part of something that has been around for 138 years," Bagnoli said.

Penn's coach also used the word caretaker, as in, "I've been fortunate to have been a caretaker for the last 23 years." He used another word - distraction - to describe what coaching his last career home game at Franklin Field was like. To anybody who knows Bagnoli, that comes as no surprise.

After including Bagnoli in pregame senior day ceremonies, his wife getting flowers like the mothers of senior players did, Penn planned much of its celebration of the coach for times when he wouldn't notice. Chip Kelly, once a Columbia assistant, sang Bagnoli's praises on a video board. So did Andy Talley. The band played "You Can Call Me Al" at halftime. Others spoke on the video screen. Big games over the years were highlighted, while the coach was either in the locker room or preoccupied on the sideline.

Bagnoli took the hug from Murphy and more hugs from his wife and children and friends and alumni - he understood handshakes weren't enough for most of them - and then he walked off shaking his head about a couple of plays that went the wrong way when Penn had a real chance to shake up the Ivies.

The strangest part of this last ride is that Bagnoli, who announced his retirement before the season, is experiencing his worst season at the very end, now 1-8 after undefeated Harvard had prevailed to clinch a share of the Ivies, 34-24. In 23 here and 10 more in charge at Union College, he'd never had a season like this.

"Very few things have gone according to script," he said later.

For a time Saturday afternoon, the records weren't just forgotten, they were reversed. The teams had completely changed roles. Harvard looked confused, the Quakers precise.

Up a touchdown going into the fourth quarter, Penn missed an opportunity to go up two scores and then missed a field goal. Harvard got back off its heels, found its equilibrium, and rode some more of Paul Stanton's 235 rushing yards to wrest control back.

"We played well for portions of the game, for high percentages of the game," Bagnoli said.

That other team is the real deal. Murphy's resumé is right there with Bagnoli's, stride for stride. As Bagnoli put it, they replaced Harvard's Joe Restic and Yale's Carm Cozza as rivals at the top. Whatever was said about Bagnoli, "people are going to do to [Murphy] in a couple of years when he retires."

It wasn't all Ivy titles for Bagnoli. He'd dealt with plenty in charge all these years, had dark days. He always showed an amazing emotional consistency. Whatever surprises were in the offing, they weren't going to come from the coach.

And when the last news-conference question was answered, the best football coach in the University of Pennsylvania's history jumped in a John Deere cart for a ride back around to the locker room, his eyes tearing up.

Really?

No, of course not. That would never be part of any Al Bagnoli script, not in public anyway. Not even on the last page.