Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1526526
4 8 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 4 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 T he day before its season began, Or- egon posted a promotional video to the football team's social media accounts featuring an elderly grounds- keeper tending meticulously to a Big Ten field. While the old man trims blades of grass one at a time with a tiny pair of scissors, an off-camara narrator intones, "It's an honor to be here, to be among teams with so much tradition. Age-old practices from generations long ago. We'll do our best to keep up." The video ends with the Duck mascot tearing through the groundskeeper's once-pristine field on a motorcycle, do- ing donuts in the shape of the Oregon logo. To those who tend to regard the Ducks as an above-average football program with a world-class marketing depart- ment, the video will do nothing to change that view. What struck me about it, though, was how thoroughly rooted it was in the very past that it was mocking. While there may have been a time when the Big Ten really was a stuffy pur- veyor of Midwestern football orthodoxy, that time has long passed. Penn State helped bring an end to it three decades ago. It's easy to forget, but when the Nit- tany Lions began Big Ten play in 1993, the conference was an afterthought as far as the national championship was con- cerned. It had been 25 years since a Big Ten team had won the mythical crown, with Ohio State doing so in 1968. In the years since Woody Hayes' Buck- eyes beat USC in the '69 Rose Bowl to clinch their title, Joe Paterno's Nittany Lions had played for the national cham- pionship four times and had won two of those games. Paterno's teams were open about their desire to go anywhere they needed to go to compete for the sport's ultimate prize. Their approach stood in stark contrast to that of the Big Ten, whose teams had seemingly convinced themselves that the sun rose and set over Pasadena. Back then, many fans worried that the Lions' entry into the league would lock them into the Rose Bowl and lock them out of potential national championship matchups. Those fears proved entirely justified only two years into PSU's Big Ten tenure when it went undefeated but ended up No. 2 in the final polls because the Rose Bowl tie-in prevented it from meeting No. 1 Nebraska for the title. The Nittany Lions' snub was unmis- takable proof that the Big Ten was handi- capping its teams by shackling them to the Rose Bowl. The league had been excluded from the Bowl Coalition and its successor, the Bowl Alliance, due to its contractual ties, perpetuating the prob- lem. As far as PSU fans were concerned, something had to give. Something did. When the Bowl Championship Series was launched in 1998, the Rose Bowl, Big Ten and Pac-10 were part of the mix of conferences and bowls that had come together to produce an undisputed national champion every year. It was cold comfort to Penn State fans, but the Nittany Lions had played a significant role in bringing about a more sensible conclusion to each college foot- ball season. The Lions' early success in the Big Ten — they went 22-2 in their first two seasons — was also significant in that it forced their new conference opponents to level up. Within four years of Penn State's entry, six Big Ten teams had changed leadership. Among the new head coaches were Nick Saban, Lloyd Carr and Joe Tiller. Tiller might actually have had the most lasting impact of those three. He brought his spread offense from Wyoming to Purdue, convinced that if it could work in Laramie, it could work anywhere. He went on to compile an 87-62 record at a place where few had succeeded previously. Eventually, others tried to replicate his pass-friendly ap- proach. When he retired after the 2008 season, Paterno cited him as one of the league's most influential figures, noting that "a lot of people in this conference didn't think you could do that with the weather." As for Carr, he was more of a tradi- tionalist than an innovator, but he won the conference's first national champi- onship since '68 when he led Michigan to a share of the title (with Nebraska) in 1997. Since then, Ohio State has won two national crowns, and the Wolverines have won one more. That makes four national champion- ships since the league's growth spurt in 1993, and the total doesn't include the split title that Penn State should have been awarded in 1994 after going 12-0 (with a win over Oregon in the Rose Bowl). If the Ducks and their West Coast brethren think they're changing the Big Ten's insular, aristocratic culture, they're about 30 years too late. That culture be- gan changing decades ago, and it's one of the reasons why the Big Ten has been absorbing Pac-12 teams, not the other way around. C'mon guys, try to keep up. ■ Joe Paterno led the Nittany Lions to a 12-0 finish in 1994, the team's second season of Big Ten membership. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL Penn State Helped Change The Big Ten's Culture VARSITY VIEWS