Penn State-Ohio State a Great Matchup—But Then What for the Nittany Lions?

I've always been a big fan of Penn State vs. Ohio State.  Both sides always seem to step it up for this game, and there have been some very memorable games. My personal favorite was 1997, when Curtis Enis broke out for a huge game in a fourth quarter comeback.

Win or lose, this is a big game for both teams.

I then look at the rest of the season and yawn.

Beyond playing Ohio State every year, I've never thought Penn State was a good fit in the Big Ten.

Penn State has no real rivalries with any other Big Ten schools.  There are trophies for the Michigan State and Minnesota games, but come on, has Penn State ever played either team in a meaningful game for a conference title?

Every year, I look at Penn State's schedule and find very few games that are really must-see.  The Big Ten slate is a bunch of games against schools I don't really know or care about: Purdue, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, and so on—games with no emotion, no passion.

I long for the days where we played Pitt every year—and man, did we not get along. 

I know hindsight is 20-20, but we should have joined the Big East in the early '90s.  We would have been playing Pitt, Miami, West Virginia, and Syracuse every year.

With the ability to schedule four non-conference games a year, Penn State vs. Notre Dame could have developed into a great rivalry.  Instead, we stopped scheduling them so we could get more home games against Akron, Temple, and Coastal Carolina.

My biggest beef is we stopped playing Pitt.  You don't just play a team for 96 years and then decide to call it quits.  I don't really buy the excuse that we couldn't get a deal done.  It is bigheaded of us to expect a rival team to accept a two away for one home scheduling offer.

Yes we looked down on Pitt and chanted Pitt is S___, but that's what made those games great.  You always looked forward to Pitt week.

Now, we can look forward to home games against Indiana and Michigan State.  It just doesn't have the same feeling.

This is my first article, so feel free to chime in and give feedback.

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