College Football Preview: Penn Quakers

By Matt Leon

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Penn Quakers are preparing for their first season under new head coach Ray Priore.

While this is Priore's first year as the head coach, he is by no means new to Penn. This will actually be his 29th season with the Quakers. He spent the previous 16 seasons as defensive coordinator. He takes over for Al Bagnoli, who retired from Penn after the 2014 campaign, but soon after took the head coaching job at Columbia.

Priore says the transition to head coach has been smooth.

"It's gone well," Priore tells KYW Newsradio. "I've taken some advice from a lot of good coaches in the profession. I got a chance to hire on some real good coaches underneath me and allow good coaches to coach and not try to micro-manage, but making sure the ebb and flow of practice, daily routine, is very, very efficient. I think that is the key thing I'm trying to look for, efficiency, and making sure I can observe and make some important decisions as we go forward."

Listen to the entire interview with Penn's Ray Priore

While most of the nation's college football teams will kick off their seasons this week, the Ivy League always starts its campaign much later. In fact, the Quakers are still two-and-a-half weeks away from their first game, so they are still in camp mode and Priore is happy with what he has seen out of his squad.

"We're on target," Priore says. "We're taking the steps I think, at this point in preseason, (towards) where we need to be. We're about a third of the way through and I think we're making those steps in the right direction, both guys developing within the systems and the coaches and everybody else getting on the same page."

Penn is coming off a 2-8 season( 2-5 in Ivy League) in 2014 and the year prior the Quakers were 4-6. Priore says they are anxious to turn things around.

"I think the strength in the group is that we're a very, very hungry football team," Priore says. "I think it's not common place for Penn to be down for a couple years like we've been. So I think the strength is definitely in our senior leadership. Three captains that we nominated, (defensive lineman) Dan Connaughton, (tight end) Ryan O'Malley and (defensive lineman) Tyler Drake have been obviously stalwart kids in the program, but then and the group of seniors have really had a great offseason, trained here in the summertime, so they're raring to go."

Priore breaks down some strengths, personnel wise, on the roster.

"I think in every league, from Pop Warner to the NFL, it starts with the quarterback position," Priore says. "Alek Torgersen coming back from his sophomore year (2,689 yards, 14 touchdowns), rising junior, has got a full year underneath him. I think hopefully he's gotten out those sophomore jitters and get in a situation where he can make good decisions and he's done that through the spring, through preseason camp. I like our offensive line as a unit. I think if you have a good, senior laden group coming back you're going to be pretty good on offense. On defense, I really like our second level, our linebackers have played well in the spring, bring back a lot of experience there as well."

Penn will open the 2015 season on Saturday, September 19th on the road at Lehigh.

You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.