V S . K E N T U C K Y
the East to play one of the historically
less-successful teams from the SEC.
Kentucky's o?cial all-time football
record is 491-551-36. The Wildcats have
never gone undefeated but they have suf-
fered through one winless year, going 0-
10-1 in 1984. Kentucky's heyday was in
the post-World War II era with a young
coach named Paul Bryant. The future leg-
endary Bear coached the Wildcats from
1946-53 without a losing season, winning
at least seven games six times and guiding
the team to its pulled a fast one on Paterno,"
recalled Terry Nau, the Collegian sports
editor in 1971 who covered the '72 game
for the now-defunct Pennsylvania Mir-
ror. Nau steered me to 2012 story by a
Tennessee blogger. Apparently, the Ten-
nessee hierarchy and fans abhorred night
games. "Paterno sent word that the only
way he would follow through with the
game was if it was played at night," the
blogger wrote. "Otherwise, he'd was se-
cretly working on the installation of lights
for that 1972 season. Checkmate.
The results of both games were disas-
trous for Penn State. In 1971, the unde-
feated, <@h-ranked Nittany Lions had
already locked up a Cotton Bowl berth
against the winner of the Texas-Arkansas
game, but they bumbled their way into an
ignominious 31-11 loss in Knoxville. Al-
though they redeemed themselves in the
Cotton Bowl with a stunning 30-6 win
over Texas, the 1972 opener was another
step backward. They trailed 21-0 at half-
time, and while they earned some respect
by rallying in the second half, they still
lost, 28-21, with the ball at the Tennessee
26-yard line when time ran out. Penn
State did not lose again until falling to No.
2 Oklahoma, 14-0, in the Sugar Bowl.
When the Kentucky series began in 1975,
the Wildcats did not appear capable of
shocking Penn State the way Tennessee
had. Fran Curci, a former All-America
quarterback at Miami, had become head
coach two years earlier following seven
losing seasons under Bradshaw and his
successor, John Ray. The Wildcats never
won more than three games in any of those
seven seasons, but Curci's a major upset, losing 10-3, with
Paterno admitting the Lions "were =at"
and "lost their poise." Kentucky wound up
with a woeful 2-8-1 record, but the close
loss to Penn State was a harbinger.
The 1976 season did not start or end well
for Penn State. A 22-6 loss to Kentucky in
Lexington on Oct. 2 contributed to a
mediocre 7-5 record that year, the team's
worst
