Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/144988
H I S T O R Y | enn State's first year of Big Ten football looks pretty good in the record books, but it's unlikely that many fans under the age of 35 truly remember the turmoil of the 1993 season. Actually, what happened that year was the culmination of forces that had been set in motion years earlier, and the Nittany Lions didn't take control of the season and their elite place in the Big Ten until two minutes were left in the third quarter of the last game of the regular season at Michigan State. That was the moment Penn State became the historic team that would go undefeated in 1994 and win the Big Ten championship and the Rose Bowl. The record book shows that the Big Ten era began with a 38-20 victory over Minnesota before 95,387 fans in Beaver Stadium and that the losses were back-to-back against the two traditional powers of the conference, Michigan and Ohio State. Penn State won 10 of 12 games in 1993, including the Citrus Bowl, and finished third in the Big Ten standings, seventh in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll and eighth in The Associated Press media rankings. The tumultuous story of how it all came about goes back to Dec. 19, 1989. That was the day the Big Ten announced it had invited Penn State to become its 11th member. All hell broke loose among the Big Ten athletic directors and coaches following that announcement. They were angry that they hadn't been consulted by the league presidents who made the offer. They also were upset that the addition of Penn State would increase travel costs for all athletic teams, not just football. Several athletic directors and coaches also complained about the school's rural location, its small airport (which was incapable of handling even medium-sized passenger planes) and its distance from the nearest interstate highway (about 11 miles). The most famous remark in the initial flurry of resentment came from Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight, a supposed good friend of Joe Paterno. "Penn State's a camping trip," Knight said derisively. "There's nothing around for 100 miles." Because scheduling adjustments were needed by the Big Ten and Penn State, conference officials decided that competition for all sports except football could start as early as the 1991-92 school year. Football would have to wait until the fall of 1993.