Penn football’s spring shows key players to know for the fall, from ‘a weapon’ at wideout to a linebacker with ‘the juice’

After just under a month of spring practices, Penn’s football team closed out the run with an open scrimmage on Friday evening at Franklin Field. Here’s a look at some key names to remember for when the fall comes around.

The rising senior started last year as the backup to Aidan Sayin, then became the starter in late October when Sayin suffered a season-ending injury against Yale.

O’Brien finished that game, then started the last four contests of the season. He won at Brown and Yale, then lost at home to Harvard and at Princeton. In all, he played in eight games and totaled 1,018 passing yards and 13 touchdowns while completing 66% of his passes.

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Come September, the Boulder, Colo., native will enter the season as the expected starter.

“Liam has progressed,” Penn coach Ray Priore said Friday. “He’s really active with his feet. He’s a mobile quarterback. So we’ve got to make sure that we’re doing things that fit him.”

A Bethlehem-area native, the rising senior earned a starting spot as a sophomore and kept it as a junior. He played in all 10 games last year and caught 46 passes for 684 yards and seven touchdowns.

Then he had shoulder surgery, and he’s still recovering. So he didn’t play Friday, but then again, a lot of veterans didn’t.

“He’s been working out with the team, but not any contact,” Priore said. “He is a weapon, a weapon with so many different things he can do. … We’re designing a lot of things we’re doing for him.”

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The senior-to-be also didn’t suit up Friday, as he finishes recovering from a shoulder injury suffered in the Harvard game. A second-team all-Ivy honoree last season, he will be one of the defense’s leaders this fall.

“John is the juice,” Priore said. “He takes after his uncle, his dad, former Penn players and captains, and he plays with a lot of energy.”

His uncle, Bill Lista, was an offensive lineman from 1981 to 1983. His father, Mike Lista, was a defensive lineman from 1985 to 1987 and was first-team all-Ivy League and the team’s MVP in the last of those years. Each won two Ivy titles, with Bill part of the famed 1982 team that ended a 23-year title drought.

Penn’s current eight-year drought is the longest since then. This year, the quest to end it will come with the added bonus of it being the first time Ivy League teams can go to the FCS playoffs.

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This is the biggest question over the team right now — other than, of course, whether it can improve on last year’s unsightly 4-6 record. Malachi Hosley’s departure to Georgia Tech after leading the Ivy League in rushing yards leaves a big hole in the backfield, and there’s an open competition to fill it.

Right now, the Quakers have three running backs on the roster: juniors Sean Williams Jr. and Jamal Bing Jr. and sophomore Donte West. Priore has given all three a fair share of looks this spring.

“We needed to do more hitting this year than we’ve done before,” Priore said. “Unless you go live, you don’t know who can really make somebody miss in the open field, and we saw some good things there. I think they’re still working at it right now. so it’s a little battle to see who will be first, but I think we have three kids that are really competing.”

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