John Robertson had four touchdown passes against Penn.

Earlier this week, Derek Jeter may have had a fairytale ending in his final game at Yankee Stadium but not every final time in sports can follow the script. Saturday at venerable Franklin Field on a day that was more summer than fall, Al Bagnoli – in his final season as Penn head coach – was coaching his last game against Villanova and his good friend Andy Talley. In 12 previous tries, Bagnoli had never won and he still hasn’t. Villanova poured it on from the start, scoring on their first five possessions to build a 34-0 lead en route to a 41-7 victory.

The Wildcats (3-1) needed just six plays to get on the scoreboard with a 36-yard pass from John Robertson to tight end Earnest Pettway capping a 75-yard drive.

The Quakers (0-2) seemed poised to answer, their sophomore quarterback Alek Torgerson, who was making his second career start, completed his first two passes to Ryan O’Malley and Connor Scott and Penn moved from their 25 to the Wildcats 24-yard line. Then Torgerson had miscommunication with his receivers and his third pass of the afternoon was intercepted by Jason Ceneus at the 1-yard line. From there, the ‘Cats grounded out a 13-play drive to go up 14-0 when Robertson connected with Poppy Livers on a 9-yard touchdown.

“Obviously it was a big play,” said Bagnoli on the interception, “if we could’ve answered we might have gotten a little more confidence, a little more emotion but we didn’t.”

The Quakers couldn’t get started on their next opportunity with the ball, back-to-back penalties resulted in them facing a first-and-30 from their 15. After a sack and incompletion they punted. Three plays later, Gary Underwood raced 54 yards to paydirt and it was 21-0.

The second quarter wasn’t much better for the Red and Blue, two minutes in Robertson had his third touchdown of the day, this one a 17-yard throw to Mike Burke.

After a three-and-out by Penn, Robertson tossed his fourth. A busted coverage allowed Kevin Gulyas to be all alone, Robertson found him for a play that covered 66 yards. It was only now that the Wildcats made a mistake when they missed the extra point.

The Wildcats had a start that would make Chip Kelly jealous, five possessions, 376 yards, 33 plays and 34 points all in just under 19 minutes of game time.

“We came out and we knew what we had to,” Robertson said. “We knew we were more skilled than they were so we knew we couldn’t let them hang in there. We had Earnest start it off then the defense got the ball back and we just started rolling.”

You don’t play for a coach whose won nine Ivy League titles without having some pride, Penn was able to get on the board when Kyle Wilcox took a handoff up the middle and went 67 yards for a score. On the next possession, the Quaker defense held and forced a punt but Torgerson was sacked by Don Cherry and Pat Williams fell on the subsequent fumble and any momentum Penn had was gone. Two-plays later, Underwood capped the scoring with a 14-yard run.

“When they’re clicking we definitely feed off their energy,” said Cherry about the Wildcats’ offense. “John’s always telling me to get the ball back to him and I’m always telling him we’re going to get the ball back for you.”

The second half featured a lot of substitutes by Villanova (Robertson whose dealing with a broken bone in his non-throwing hand and a hip pointer didn’t play at all) and Penn trying to find something they could build on going into their Ivy League opener next week at Dartmouth.

The Wildcats finished with 567 yards total offense with Roberson going 15-of-21 passing for 230 yards with the four touchdowns. He ran for an additional 45 yards.

For Talley it was a bittersweet win.

“It was great to coach against him,” he said referring to Bagnoli. “From his end not having won any of them is never great. It’s been a little one sided but the friendship has remained.”

Email Rock Hoffman at Rock@footballstories.com