Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1542734
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 6 51 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 VARSITY VIEWS K i-Jana Carter hadn't even reached his own 40-yard line when Keith Jackson declared it a touchdown. "He's gone, goodbye," the veteran play-by-play man said on ABC's broadcast of the 1995 Rose Bowl, call- ing the Nittany Lions' first offensive play of the game — correctly, as it turned out. If you haven't gone back and watched Carter's legendary 83-yard touchdown run against Oregon in a while, it's worth revisiting, even as a grainy YouTube clip. Everything that he brought to Penn State's greatest offensive team is on full view in the 12 seconds it took him to get from the PSU backfield to the Ducks' end zone: the balance, the power, the vision and, most of all, the incredible speed. With PSU starting out at its own 17-yard line, Carter follows fullback Brian Milne into the hole on a first- down pitch. He's leaning a little too far forward, seemingly in danger of stum- bling, but a collision with safety Her- man O'Berry gets him upright again. Once he's out the chute, it's six points. On the broadcast, the next shot after the Nittany Lions' touchdown celebra- tion is of a dazed Oregon sideline won- dering what just happened. "They had him, they thought," Jackson said. "And then he was gone." Memories of that run and so many others came rushing back on Jan. 14 when it was announced that Carter had been elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. He became the 21st Penn State player and fourth Paterno-era running back to be welcomed into the hall, joining John Cappelletti, Lydell Mitchell and Curt Warner. The honor could not be more well-deserved. Carter finished his three-year play- ing career at Penn State with 2,829 yards and still owns the program record with a career average of 7.2 yards per carry. More than half of Carter's total yards — 1,539, to be exact — came in the 1994 season when the Lions fielded an of- fense that simply couldn't be stopped. They boasted future pros at nearly every position, and nowhere was their strength more apparent than on the of- fensive line. Guards Jeff Hartings and Marco Rivera would go on to enjoy long NFL careers, and tackle Andre Johnson was a first-round pick, too. Carter was a big beneficiary of all that power up front, but he was also a singular talent, a 220-pounder who could bounce off would-be tacklers and then outrun them once he found some open space. His breathtaking speed was the reason everyone knew he'd scored the first touchdown of the Rose Bowl even though he still had 60 yards of field to cover and a pack of Or- egon defenders giving chase. In the announcement of his elevation to the College Hall of Fame, Penn State athletics director Patrick Kraft noted that Carter "played a major role in de- fining an era that elevated our program." New head football coach Matt Campbell described him as "one of the most dy- namic players ever to wear the uniform." Penn State has had many great run- ning backs in the three decades since Carter led the Lions to a 38-20 victory over Oregon in what would turn out to be his final college game. The best, of course, was Saquon Barkley. And coin- cidently, it was the Rose Bowl that pro- vided Barkley with a showcase for his skills, with the then-sophomore grab- bing the nation's attention on a high- speed 79-yard jaunt through the USC defense to open the second half of PSU's matchup with the Trojans in 2017. Someday, Barkley is probably go- ing to join Carter in the College Hall of Fame, perhaps as the first Nittany Lion of the post-Paterno era to be en- shrined. With any luck, it won't take nearly as long as it did for his predeces- sor. Carter had been on the ballot since 2022 and didn't garner sufficient sup- port until this year. Unlike a lot of players, including a few who will be inducted alongside him on Dec. 8 in Las Vegas, Carter didn't have a chance to retroactively burnish his college reputation by excelling in the NFL. After being chosen No. 1 overall by the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1995 draft — the first Nittany Lion to be so honored — he suffered a torn ACL in his first preseason game and ended up being a journeyman pro, never sur- passing 500 yards in any of his seven injury-plagued seasons. But his college career was nothing less than marvelous. It showcased not just his own greatness but that of his fellow Nittany Lions, and he acknowl- edged their contributions in accepting his Hall of Fame nod. "I was fortunate to be part of a spe- cial program, surrounded by great teammates who pushed me every day," Carter said. "This honor belongs to all of us who wore the uniform with pride." ■ A Fitting Honor For Penn State Great Ki-Jana Carter Carter's 83-yard touchdown run to open the 1995 Rose Bowl was the signature moment of a career that led to his recent election to the College Football Hall of Fame. BWI FILE PHOTO