Blue White Illustrated

January 2023

Penn State Sports Magazine

Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1488968

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 20 of 67

J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 3 2 1 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M Over the past seven seasons, Penn State has gone 63-24, compiling a win- ning percentage of 72.4 that ranks sev- enth in the FBS during that span. Head- ing into this year's Rose Bowl, PSU had won 10 or more games in four of those seven seasons. In addition to Penn State's recent win- loss records, its bowl invitations offer evidence of how the program has stabi- lized and even grown since that bounce- back 2016 season. The Nittany Lions have been invited to four New Year's Six bowls in the past seven years — two Rose Bowl berths along with trips to the Fi- esta Bowl in 2017 and the Cotton Bowl in 2019. The last time anything like that hap- pened at Penn State was during the pin- nacle of the Joe Paterno era. From 1980 to '86, the Nittany Lions played in five New Year's Six bowls: three Fiesta Bowls (after the 1980, '81 and '86 seasons), a Sugar Bowl (1982) and an Orange Bowl (1985). Three of those games were for the national championship, and Penn State won two of them. It was a good run. The Lions also played in New Year's Six bowls with regularity while they were making their rise to national prominence during the early years of Paterno's reign. From 1968 to '78, they made nine New Year's Six appearances, a run that cul- minated in the program's first shot at the national title, a matchup with Alabama in the Sugar Bowl at the end of the '78 season. But during the latter years of Pater- no's tenure, the major bowl appearances became less frequent. From the start of the Big Ten era in 1993 to Paterno's final campaign in 2011, a span of 19 seasons, PSU earned just four New Year's Six bowl invitations. Given that history, the Lions' rise to major bowl contention on a more or less annual basis has to be considered a sign of progress. The team's failure to secure a College Football Playoff berth during that span is always going to stick in the Sean Clifford had played in 50 games at Penn State heading into the Rose Bowl and made 45 starts. He leaves PSU as the school leader in passing yards and passing touchdowns. PHOTO BY DANIEL ALTHOUSE

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Blue White Illustrated - January 2023