Profiles of the Big Ten: Penn State
by Husker Mike on May 20, 2010 6:15 AM CDT
in Conference Realignment
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Print Beaver Stadium in Happy Valley, complete with the reconfigured sideline from 1982
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Penn State became the eleventh member of the Big Ten in 1993, and have won three conference titles since then. At the time of the announcement, the New York Times reported that there was "considerable doubt" that Joe Paterno would ever coach a full Big Ten schedule, as Paterno had reportedly said he would retire in 1991.
Well, twenty years later, JoePa is still the head coach at Penn State at the ripe old age of 83. Paterno will go for win #400 this fall, his 45th as the head coach of the Nittany Lions. Prior to becoming head coach, Paterno spent 16 seasons as an assistant...so this is his 61st season at Penn State.
Stop and pause for that one for a second. 61 years on the job.
Paterno led the Nittany Lions to national championships in 1982 and 1986. The 21st century has been less than kind to Paterno, From 2000 to 2004, Penn State only had one winning season, leading to grumbling that time had passed JoePa by. But since then, Penn State has shared two conference championships and won no fewer than nine games each of the last five seasons.
Paterno once said that Tom Osborne would win a national championship when he least expected it. Turns out to be literally the case as in 1994, Penn State and Paterno were disappointed to go undefeated and see Nebraska (and Osborne) named national champions. But the roots of that go back to 1982, when Penn State handed Nebraska it's only loss of the season thanks to two of the worst calls ever made in college football history. (Per the Penn State Daily Collegian)
 JoePa & Penn State fans still don't understand how his 1994 team didn't merit a national championship.
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With seconds left, Penn State quarterback Todd Blackledge threw to Mike McCloskey who jumped up to catch the ball and landed well out of bounds. But the referees ruled it a catch, and gave Penn State the ball at the Husker two yard line with nine seconds left. On the next play, Kirk Bowman trapped a Blackledge dumpoff pass in the end zone for a gift touchdown. Nebraska fans howled. Dan Young, who later would join the Nebraska coaching staff as an offensive line coach, marketed a t-shirt that showed the Beaver Stadium field with the sideline moved an extra 20 feet out to accommodate McCloskey's catch.
Since that game, Nebraska and Penn State have played three times. In the 1983 Kickoff Classic, Nebraska extracted a bit of revenge by downing the Lions 44-6 in the first Kickoff Classic at the Meadowlands. In 2002, Penn State blew out the Huskers 40-7 in Happy Valley, and in 2003, the Huskers won 18-10 in Lincoln.
Given the history between these two programs, it's shouldn't be a surprise if a rivalry develops between the Huskers and Penn State, should both become fellow conference members. Granted, there is the distance between the two programs; Nebraska extending the Big Ten to the west and Penn State to the east. Penn State and Nebraska also have a tradition in volleyball, with an epic 2008 national semifinal matchup at the Qwest Center in Omaha.
What kind of trophy should the two schools play for? Quite simply, it should be the Field Chalk Trophy, in recognition of the redrawn sideline that earned Penn State a title in 1982.
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Penn State in the Big Ten
Since Penn State still seems rather new and “foreign” to many old time, Pre-PSU, Big Ten alums, Nebraska can expect the same long period of transition before it feels like it truly belongs. The other conference members just have too much shared history and tradition to make it any other way.
That said, I remember all the brilliant sports writers, who can only write in pithy cliches while parroting each other into a slumgullion of continulally bad journalism, who all agreed that PSU coming into the Big Ten was the end of the OSU-UM dominance, as well as poor OSU would probably never see another Big Ten championship again having to play PSU AND UM every year. Poor Buckeyes. The glory days were over according to the all knowing talking heads.
We all know what happens to these type of uneducated “pronouncements.” It’s all cyclical and will continue to be. All teams have their ups and downs. I remember Nebraska fans back in the 90’s who knew their team was now the driving force in football and that no one else would ever catch up , much as the SEC is trying to peddle this snake oil now. Nebraska will rise to dominance again, just as Oklahoma (feel free to insert the name of any perennial power here) did after their years in the wilderness.
OSU just happened to be having a few down years when PSU came in, but that changed quickly as both OSU and UM (as well as all the other teams in the Big Ten that PSU “was never going to lose to”) began beating the mighty PSU Lions.
We all see what happens to a perennial power like PSU, who feasted on a couple steaks then coasted with cupcakes, when they had to play the grueling Big Ten schedule every year. Their perennial national dominance fell fast.
This expansion is going to be interesting. To the old-timers from the 10-member Big Ten days, it is truly a surreal event.
Much of what you write is true
although I think Nebraska would feel “at home” much sooner than Penn State did simply because they are culturally much more similar to places like Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Penn State was definitely an East Coast school before they redefined themselves in the context of the Big Ten. Although it could be decades before Nebraska could think of Indiana or Michigan State as a “rival” school, the aforementioned trio would get the Huskers into the swing of things pretty quickly.
Less memorable than Sam Okey's Hawkeye career.
by Kyle McCann't on May 20, 2010 6:55 PM CDT up reply actions
Definitely a rivalry or two
How would Iowa and Nebraska NOT have a rivalry? They’d play annually for the Corn Bowl. Penn State would be another great candidate for a rivalry because of the big game history. And you would have three of the most storied football programs in college history in the same conference with Nebraska, Ohio St, and Michigan. Nebraska’s presence would also lend some more firepower in terms of the BCS. Could be the best fit out there.
"You can't be fat and fast too; so lift, run, diet, and work." ~ Hank Stram
by citadelchief on May 22, 2010 10:44 AM CDT up reply actions
We could have a quite fine rivalry
I came out to the 03 game at your place, and was welcomed graciously by kind fans wearing red. Your Academic All-American banners are awesome. But that game stunk, on both sides. There was a fair bit of (mostly) respectful taunts and counter-taunts in our section and a funny moment when some real loud drunk dude caught everyone’s attention in a quietish moment and shouted: ‘THIS IS A GAME…..(long pause as he’s stumbling to his feet for exit)…..‘BETWEEN TWO NOT VERY GOOD TEAMS’ The whole section cracked up.
For the majority of people involved (football fans) the notion of ‘feeling like it truly belongs’ is unimportant. Basically, if you provide a good football watching environment (you do), enjoy visiting other good environments (PSU, the Shoe, the Big House, Camp Randall, Kinnick), and put a decent product on the field pretty regularly, there’s not gonna be an issue. Now, if you care about being recognized as belonging or fitting in or being respected as a ‘rival’ whatever that means to you, you’re likely to have a longer road.
But it is a tough league. Serendipity brought us our most powerful offense in history a year after we joined, so we ran the table. We stayed competitive the rest of the 90s, but had tougher road to hoe with new guy champion bullseye and caught our share of beats. Then we hit our Dark Years, something most programs know a little something about (although ours were the result of a string of unlucky recruiting and player flameouts and not top-level admin or hiring mistakes like you had and Michigan now has), before rebounding and winning 2 out of the last 5 years. We’re set up now to be competitive each year and should challenge for the league title every two years or so, but so is OSU . They’re stable top to bottom, and they’re tough bastards to take down. But, I imagine Bo would welcome that challenge. For this fan’s part, I’d love to have Big Red aboard.
um….I should clarify that last bit. Would love to have Nebraska come aboard. You can leave creepy Big Red at home.
Crack is wac
wow
Nebraska fans have the longest memory for “We got SCREWED” moments of any fanbase I have ever seen.
It isn’t like y’all don’t have your questionable moments, too (Shevin Wiggins illegal kick to Matt Davison, anyone?).
I still believe that 1994 Penn State squad would have wrecked shop all over that ‘94 Nebraska team, but unfortunately we’ll never know.
hey
1982 was part of my college years at Nebraska. I still vividly remember the response of the guys in our dorm room in Schramm after that (we’d snuck a keg into the dorm for that game). That one play at Penn State probably cost us a national title.
Plus, we do love our football, you know that.
Go Big Red Nebraska!
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by Jon Johnston on May 22, 2010 10:48 AM CDT up reply actions
Did an Aggie
just speak critically of another fan living in the past?
Less memorable than Sam Okey's Hawkeye career.
by Kyle McCann't on May 23, 2010 12:18 PM CDT up reply actions
Hahahahaha
of course we are. Maybe it’s that I sometimes work with a Penn State alum who’s about the same age as I am, and he brings it up on a regular basis to needle me.
Or, maybe it’s as you say – we never forget, hold grudges, all those things you shouldn’t do and have a healthy life. :)
Go Big Red Nebraska!
Our Cobs Are Bigger Than Yours!
Corn Nation!
Twitter!
cornnation@gmail.com
by Jon Johnston on May 24, 2010 7:50 AM CDT up reply actions
Other than two games in 2002 and 2003 when both teams sucked...
…that’s the only real connection between the Huskers and Lions in that time…
You mean the play we mentioned in the opening installment of this series?
Pay attention, man. It’s right here.
Additional stuff...
I happen to work with a friend who is from PA. She got some good information here, albeit a bit late! Here are a few of the more interesting ones:
- All students will climb Mt. Nittany before they actually graduate. Apparently the mountain looks like a lion?
-Blue White game. (We know a little about that, having the red-white game)
-The Creamery is supposedly a place where PSU makes their own ice cream. Must be a Pennsylvania Dutch thing…and I bet it’s amazing!
-Fans line the 2 sides of the street leading up to the stadium, and chant “We are – Penn State” alternately as the player buses come up the drive. Probably gives people chills much in the way the 2 sides of Memorial stadium chant “Husker – Power” right before the players come out.
-Paternoville: Students camp in tents outside the stadium entrance with hopes of getting the best student seats. Sometimes 3 days ahead of time…
"Not the victory but the action; Not the goal but the game;
In the deed the glory"
GO BIG RED!
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