Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1503568
9 6 A U G U S T 2 0 2 3 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M E D I T O R I A L MATT HERB MATT.HERB@ON3.COM S hortly after it was announced in 1989 that Penn State would be joining the Big Ten, Michigan State coach George Perles called Joe Paterno to suggest establishing a rivalry. Perles wanted an annual clash between the Nittany Lions and Spartans that would take place on the last day of the regular season. The agreement between Michigan State and Penn State ultimately yielded the cultishly beloved Land Grant Tro- phy, a massive block of walnut so un- wieldy, so cluttered with shelves and appendages that the owner of the com- pany that made the base told Audrey Snyder of The Athletic last year, "It's almost like a desk now." What the agreement did not yield was a genuine rivalry. That point was underscored earlier this summer when the Big Ten revealed a new scheduling model in which the Nittany Lions were the only team in the soon-to-be 16- team league without a protected rival. Unveiled in advance of next year's addition of USC and UCLA, the "Flex Protect Plus" plan scraps the current East and West divisions in favor of a more nimble approach aimed at bal- ancing the need for marquee matchups with a desire to preserve traditional geographic rivalries and trophy games. Not all trophies are equal in the eyes of the Big Ten. The Old Oaken Bucket (Indiana-Purdue), Paul Bunyan's Axe (Minnesota-Wisconsin) and Floyd of Rosedale (Minnesota-Iowa) will be in play every year, but the Land Grant Trophy wasn't protected, and the Governor's Victory Bell (Penn State- Minnesota) was treated like a glorified paperweight. Not only was it not pro- tected, but the Gophers don't appear on PSU's slate again until 2025. Nobody is complaining that the GVB will be gathering dust in the Lasch Building for the next few years, and maybe that's the point. Even back in 1989, Penn State's move to the Big Ten was understood to be a tradeoff. PSU was getting the financial stability af- forded by membership in a thriving conference, and in exchange it was giv- ing up its traditional football rivalries against the Eastern independents in favor of games against opponents it didn't know very well. From the start of the Paterno era in 1966 to the final season of football in- dependence in '92, Penn State played only eight regular-season games against Big Ten foes, the most recent being a home-and-home series ver- sus Iowa in 1983-84. When it began Big Ten play in 1993, there were four conference teams it had never faced: Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Northwestern. One could make the case that PSU was ahead of the curve when it decided that its traditional rivalries were of secondary importance. In the years since its blockbuster move to the Big Ten, shifting conference affiliations have combined with the rise of the College Football Playoff to make rivalry games less important than they once were. These days, even The Game is subor- dinate to the playoff. If Ohio State had defeated Georgia last year and gone on to beat TCU for the national cham- pionship, would anyone in Columbus have been too bothered that the Buck- eyes were crushed by Michigan? It's doubtful. More likely, they would have marveled at how they suffered a rare loss to their archrival and still ended up with bragging rights. Penn State, too, has been eyeing the CFP covetously. The preoccupation with college football's greatest prize has made it easier to accept the reality that the Nittany Lions' greatest rivalry has disappeared and is never coming back. That long lost rival is, of course, Pitt. Even with the intrastate series mostly dormant over the past three decades, Penn State has still faced the Panthers far more often than any Big Ten team. PSU and Pitt have played 100 times since their first meeting in 1893. No Penn State series in the Big Ten comes close to matching that history. When the Nittany Lions and Pan- thers aren't facing each other on the field, they're still competing for the top talent in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League. There are six Pittsburgh players on Penn State's 2023 roster, along with two from Wexford and one from Aliquippa. Three more WPIAL players are on the way next year in athlete Quinton Mar- tin of Belle Vernon and two standouts from Pittsburgh Central Catholic — re- ceiver Peter Gonzalez and linebacker Anthony Speca. That those players will never face Pitt on a cold, gray late-November afternoon is no doubt disappointing to the faction of Penn State fandom that remains nostalgic for the rivalry's glory days of the late 1970s and early '80s. But rivalries aren't what college foot- ball fans crave most. If they were, the Lions would have one. ■ The Land Grant Trophy has symbolized Penn State's football series with Michigan State since the Nittany Lions began Big Ten play in 1993. PHOTO BY BILL ANDERSON Lions Unrivaled In Big Ten's New Scheduling Model VARSITY VIEWS