Penn State Football: 10 Teams the Nittany Lions Love To Beat Most
Rivalries are one of the great traditions in college football. Sadly for Penn State fans, there are no true rivalries to get worked up about each year. But that doesn't mean that there are not teams that get fans and the teams a bit more fired up than usual.
Here is a look at 10 schools, in particular order, that have the ability to amp up the intensity whenever Penn State takes the field against them. They include division and conference rivals as well as former opponents that have made up a part of the non-conference schedules of yesteryear.
1. Iowa Hawkeyes
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Given the recent history with the Iowa Hawkeyes, Penn State fans finding themselves starving for a victory against Iowa. The Hawkeyes have become one of the rare programs to have routine success against the Nittany Lions, including three straight victories in Big Ten play.
Penn State and Iowa have played some memorable games, as well as some games that have taken college football down a peg along the way. The 2008 meeting between the two resulted in Penn State's BCS championship dreams being shattered by the leg of Daniel Murray, who hadn't kicked a field goal since the beginning of the season. Murray's last-second field goal from 31 yards gave the Hawkeyes a stunning victory over third-ranked Penn State late in the season.
The following season Penn State hosted Iowa in a prime time matchup with Daryll Clark, Evan Royster, Navorro Bowman and company looking for redemption. A quick 10-0 start made it appear as though things would go Penn State's way, but Iowa chipped away, using a dominant defense and opportunistic special teams to turn the momentum in their favor. Iowa upset fifth-ranked Penn State in the 2009 Big Ten opener with a 16-point fourth quarter in a 21-10 decision.
Iowa has won eight of the last nine games against Penn State. No other program has held such a decisive edge in head-to-head play with Joe Paterno's team, not even Michigan or Ohio State.
Penn State fans would love to finally see their squad pick up a win against Iowa in 2011.
2. Michigan Wolverines
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Michigan had once won nine straight games against Penn State, including some painful memories along the way.
Anthony Morelli laying on the ground.
Mario Manningham's last-second touchdown.
Out of bounds or not out of bounds?
Deflating beatings in prime time.
National championship dreams crushed.
Lloyd Carr had Paterno figured out, and Penn State fans dreaded seeing Michigan's maize and blue. The long string of losses took a toll on the Nittany Lions, which made it all the more satisfying when Penn State finally snapped the losing streak once Rich Rodriguez took over in Ann Arbor.
There are a number of other reasons to get fired up when Penn State plays Michigan. The Wolverines have won more college football games than any other college program (877), not that Penn State's 811 is anything to be ashamed of. The Wolverines also claimed a share of the national championship in 1997 with Nebraska, three seasons after Penn State was shut out of a national championship split with the Cornhuskers. A look back at the voting from Big Ten states between the two seasons still rankles some Penn State fans.
Penn State has won three straight games against Michigan.
3. Alabama Crimson Tide
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Alabama and Penn State have paired up for a number of great college football games and moments, even if that meetings are rare.
This season, the Crimson Tide make a rare SEC road trip in to Big Ten country when they travel to Happy Valley in Week 2. The game has already been declared a White Out game by the university to help build the hype for the back end of a home-and-home series between the two national powers.
Beating Alabama is more than just a chance to beat Alabama though. A victory over Alabama would bring revenge for a loss in 2010 but also be seen as a victory for the Big Ten as a whole. It is not often that SEC teams make the voyage up north to play a Big Ten opponent, and the SEC has taken the title of the top college football conference in the nation. Five straight BCS championships speak for themselves, and Alabama has one of them.
Penn State is 5-9 all time against Alabama, and Joe Paterno is 4-9 against the Tide, including a 1979 Sugar Bowl loss for the national championship. The Goal Line Stand is still one of the most storied moments in Alabama history and one of the least memorable moments in Paterno's career.
The last time Penn State defeated Alabama in Beaver Stadium came in 1985. Alabama has won two straight games in State College.
4. Nebraska Cornhuskers
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Nebraska joins the Big Ten this season, and many Penn State fans feel as though the Big Ten did them a favor by guaranteeing the Cornhuskers to be Penn State's cross-over rival in the new division format.
And why not?
Penn State leads the series with Nebraska 7-6, including a 5-1 mark at home. Though the conference rivalry officially gets underway this season, the history between Penn State and Nebraska is intense.
The two schools faced each other five straight seasons between 1979 and 1983, including the first Kickoff Classic in Giants Stadium. Those games had some memorable moments of course, but the two schools will forever be linked by the 1994 season, which saw both go undefeated and finish 1-2 in the polls. Nebraska was recognized as the national champion following a victory over Miami in the Orange Bowl while Penn State defeated Oregon in the Rose Bowl. Because this was before the adaptation of the BCS, the two schools did not get to face each other.
Penn State lacked voter support in the Big Ten states, and Nebraska claimed the top spot in the final rankings by the AP and coaches. When Penn State finally did get to take a crack at Nebraska, it came in wild fashion. In 2002, Nebraska made a trip to Penn State for a prime time showdown between two programs who were shades of their 1994 status, but the anticipation in State College had been building for nearly a decade. A close game quickly turned in to a rout as Penn State celebrated a 40-7 romp of Nebraska before a Beaver Stadium record crowd.
Nebraska edged Penn State the following year in Lincoln, but that was the last time the two sides faced each other. Now Penn State and Nebraska will square off a minimum of once a year, with the possibility of a Big Ten championship game matchup always possible in December.
This should be fun.
5. Wisconsin Badgers
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The 1995 season saw Penn State looking to make a duplicate statement in the Big Ten following a year without being recognized as a national champion. The Nittany Lions had a very different team, without Kerry Collins, Ki-Jana Carter and Kyle Brady on offense, but the buzz was still there for a very good team. Two years after joining the Big Ten, the Nittany Lions were finally set to face Wisconsin for the first time since 1970.
Wisconsin, making their first trip to Beaver Stadium, shutdown the defending Big Ten champions 19-7 in a meeting of he previous two Big Ten champions. The series since Penn State joined the Big Ten is tied 6-6, and Wisconsin owns an 8-6 advantage all-time with wins in 1953 and 1970.
There have been some interesting moments in the series, and Brett Bielema's exploitation of the kickoff rules in 2006 didn't sit well with Joe Paterno. Bielema and Wisconsin purposefully, and legally, sent the kickoff team before the kick so they would be offsides. The clock would run as soon as the kick was made, and time would not be placed back on the clock after an offsides call. Wisconsin effectively milked the clock and ensured Penn State could not touch the ball on offense.
Bielema used the rules to his advantage, but the entire sequence was deemed to be in poor sportsmanship.
Penn State responded with two blowout wins in the next two, and most recent, meetings. Penn State outscored Wisconsin by a combined 86-14.
Wisconsin is now Penn State's end-of-the-season rival in division play, replacing Michigan State. This sets up possible division championships to be on the line, which should add some extra fuel to the fire.
6. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
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Notre Dame and Penn State are two similar programs, even though nobody on either side would likely admit it.
Plain uniforms, no decals on the helmets and no names on the jerseys. Both programs are deep in history and tradition, although Notre Dame's past is often held in a higher regard by the media than Penn State's, and there is reason for that with a number of Heisman Trophy players and multiple national championships. In 1982, Paterno took his team to South Bend for the first time since he took over Penn State and first time since 1926. It was there that Paterno responded to the media asking questions about preparing for Notre Dame's mystique a week after the Irish knocked off top-ranked Pittsburgh by saying that Penn State had their own history and tradition.
It was that week that Paterno also gave one of his more famous speeches to the team, reminding his players that Notre Dame's history was not going to win the game.
"It doesn't mean a thing unless Knute Rockne leaps out of the ground and tackles you," Paterno is quoted as saying. "Their field has got a hundred yards and two goalposts just like every other football field."
Penn State upset top-ranked Notre Dame in 1990 when Craig Fayak kicked a game-winning field goal as time ran off the clock. The 18th ranked Penn State team was a heavy underdog in South Bend during a 12-year string of games in the series that saw many good moments for both sides.
The all-time series between the two programs is tied at 9-9-1, with the last game in the series being played in 2007. That game marked the first collegiate start for Jimmy Clausen, who was no match for the first official stadium-wide Beaver Stadium White House.
There are no future plans for Penn State and Notre Dame to resume the series.
7. Miami Hurricanes
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Talk about an even inter-sectional series. Penn State is 3-3 at home against the Miami Hurricanes and 3-3 on the road against Miami.
Of course, Penn State is 1-0 in neutral site games against the Hurricanes. That win came in the 1987 Fiesta Bowl in one of the best college football games of all time, at least in Penn State's history.
The 1987 Fiesta Bowl was an epic matchup of the classic good guys vs. bad guys, with Penn State walking off the team plane in the familiar coat and tie, and Miami looking as though they were preparing for battle in their fatigues. Miami had no interest in playing Penn State and would make it a point to belittle the Nittany Lions by walking out on combined team events and starting the trash-talking early.
Penn State had the final laugh with a dominating defensive effort against Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Vinny Testaverde. Since then, Miami won both games in a home-and-home series (1991-1992) and ruined an emotional evening in 2001 with a 33-7 victory over a young Penn State team the same night that Penn State was led on to the field by Adam Taliaferro, who recovered from a spinal cord injury the previous season and officially opened up the renovated Beaver Stadium.
Penn State grabbed one win in the middle of those games, in 1999, when the Nittany Lions pulled out a memorable win in Miami. A defense anchored by LaVar Arrington and Courtney Brown led the way, but Kevin Thompson's 79-yard pass to Chafie Fields was the final big play needed by Penn State to score a road victory in the Orange Bowl.
Penn State leads the all-time series 7-6.
There are no plans for the series between Penn State and Miami to resume this series, which has not been played since 2001.
8. Pittsburgh Panthers
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Penn State and Pittsburgh have not played a game since 2000, and there appears to be no sign of that drought continuing any time soon. The two played every year from 1935 through 1992 but just four times since Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1993 in a four-game series from 1997 through 2000. Penn State hosted two of those games, Pittsburgh hosted one and the fourth and final meeting took place in Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh for what was considered a neutral site game.
For college football fans in Pennsylvania, regardless if they root for the Nittany Lions or the Panthers, the immature ending of this series is a shame. Penn State may in fact come off as more of a guilty party in this debate, standing pat on the issue of receiving extra home games as opposed to an even series when accounting for home games.
Joe Paterno, probably still bitter that Pittsburgh turned their back on his all-eastern college sports league idea (which is essentially what the Big East turned in to with Pittsburgh as a founding member), has stood by his declaration that Penn State needs an extra home game in order to fund the athletic department.
Both sides have a case in this argument.
In reality, there will be a day when this series drought is ended, and these two sides will face each other. When that time comes, Penn State fans and Pittsburgh fans will both be ready to battle for bragging rights in the state. With a good portion of Penn State students hailing from Pittsburgh, there will surely be some juice in the series. And think about what it would do for recruiting battles.
There are no plans for this series to continue any time soon.
9. Michigan State Spartans
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When ranking some of Penn State's rivals over the years, few people will mention Michigan State. The truth is, Penn State fans always seemed to resist calling the Spartans a rival, but the way the Big Ten schedule was put together when Penn State joined meant that the Spartans and Buckeyes would be the tow schools Penn State would play annually. With the games set for the end of the regular season, the series with Michigan State was forced to become recognized as a rivalry.
Heck, there is even a trophy for the game. That makes it a legitimate rivalry, right?
Not so fast.
Michigan State was never one of the schools that fans got really fired up to play (look at last year's attendance for evidence of that), but the way things played out always seemed to have more riding on the game than you would expect.
Multiple Big Ten championships and berths to big bowl games have been clinched in this series, with the Spartans picking up their first co-championship and their first win in Beaver Stadium since Penn State joined the Big Ten. Penn State had celebrated three Big Ten titles by defeating the Spartans in 1994, 2005 and 2008.
The Spartans may not be a team fans anticipate seeing on the schedule every season, but the game tends to have something riding on it, and this is reason enough to get excited.
Penn State leads the all-time series 14-13-1.
Michigan State slides off of Penn State's conference schedule, but they will return in the future. A possible Big Ten championship game matchup can also keep the series alive.
10. Ohio State Buckeyes
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The Ohio State Buckeyes are the perfect rival for Penn State in the Big Ten, but Ohio State fans won't buy in to that idea.
When Penn State joined the Big Ten, many thought that the Nittany Lions would dominate in the conference. Either nobody told Ohio State this or the program took that sentiment to heart and used it to motivate themselves to be the team to beat in the conference. The Buckeyes rudely welcomed Penn State to the Big Ten with a chilling defeat in 1993 in Columbus. After Penn State blasted the Buckeyes in 1994 by a 63-14 final the Buckeyes won 10 of the next 15 meetings.
Even when Penn State has defeated Ohio State in the regular season in 2005 and 2008 en route to a Big Ten championship, Ohio State claimed a share of those championships and included them in a string of Big Ten championships. Of course, Penn State fans always resort to the scoreboard in those seasons.
The rivalry for Penn State could be inspired by a shade of jealousy as Ohio State has made many more trips to BCS bowl games than Penn State, and the Buckeyes have a more recent national title. With the Buckeyes in a total state of chaos off the field right now though Penn State fans are feeling fortunate to not have their program in a similar state and cannot help but crack a smile at the misery in Columbus.
Penn State and Ohio State will continue to play on an annual basis as division rivals. The new division format could also take the rivalry between the two schools to a new level, even if it will still be second to Michigan in the eyes of Ohio State fans.
Ohio State leads the all-time series with Penn State, with a 14-12 advantage. Since joining the Big Ten, Penn State is 6-12 against the Buckeyes. They have won just once in Columbus since joining the conference.
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