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regular season. With No. 1 Ohio State seemingly headed to the Rose Bowl to play a much lower rated USC team and the AP's No. 2 team, Oklahoma, ineligible because of NCAA penalties, Alabama (No. 3 AP, No. 2 UPI) was in the driver's seat for a possible national title game if the Buckeyes weren't able to defeat Michigan. So, on the weekend the Lions defeated Ohio, Alabama coach Bear Bryant manipulated a possible showdown game with then-No. 5 Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. That left No. 6 Penn State to accept an Orange Bowl date against No. 7 LSU. By the time of the bowl games, Michigan had tied Ohio State, and LSU had lost to both Alabama and Tulane. Those results all but guaranteed that the winner of the Sugar Bowl on New Year's Eve would claim the national title, eliminating any chance that Penn State would be voted No. 1. Pitt almost took even more luster off the Orange Bowl matchup the week after the pairings were announced. The Panthers were just 6-3-1, but their new head coach, Johnny Majors, had his team primed for an upset at Pitt Stadium. The Lions' offense was listless in the first half, and just before halftime Pitt's freshman kicker, Carson Long, hit a 51-yard field goal to give the Panthers a shocking 13-3 lead. Long defiantly shook his fist at the Penn State bench as the entire Pitt team ran onto the field to celebrate Long's kick. "We were seething in the locker room," Shuman recalled. "When he made that field goal, Pitt acted as if it just won the national championship, and that really made us mad." The Lions scored on their first possession of the second half, but it wasn't easy. In a series of plays at the Pitt 2yard line that involved an offside and an interference penalty, the Panthers stopped Cappelletti four times from crossing the goal line before reserve senior fullback Bob Nagle scored from the 1 and Shuman hit Hayman for a two-point conversion to narrow Pitt's lead to 13-11. Late in the third quarter, Penn State started a drive at midfield and ended it on the third play of the fourth quarter with a 5-yard touchdown run by Cappelletti. Chris Bahr kicked the extra point, and the Lions led for the first time, 19-13. A minute later, linebacker Tom Hull intercepted a Pitt pass and dashed 27 yards for a touchdown, and it was all over for the Panthers. The Lions won, 35-13, with Shuman throwing a 32-yard touchdown pass to Chuck Herd to add to Pitt's misery. "That game against Pitt and the one the next year when I threw a couple of touchdown passes [in a 31-10 rout of the Panthers] were among the best games I played in my career," Shuman said. "Of course, the Orange Bowl my junior year may have been the best." Three weeks after the Pitt victory, Cappelletti made history with his dramatic, heartfelt acceptance speech at the Heisman dinner. By that time, the players knew their national championship aspirations were over. No. 1 Alabama was set to play No. 3 Notre Dame on New Year's Eve for the national championship, and only its own fans and college football diehards cared about Penn State's game against LSU the next night in Miami. In the AP poll before the bowl games, LSU had slipped all the way to No. 13 after ending its regular season with back-to-back losses. By the time the Orange Bowl kicked off, Notre Dame had upset Alabama, 24-12, and was a shoo-in to be voted national champion. That didn't help the mental attitude of the Lions, who looked listless in the early minutes of the Orange Bowl and allowed LSU to run the opening kickoff to midfield and then score on a 51-yard touchdown drive. "LSU was ready for us," Shuman said. "They put eight men in the box to stop Cappelletti and said if Penn State is going to beat us, they're going to have to beat us with the passing game. We hurt them with a couple of passes, and our defense stopped them cold." After its opening touchdown, LSU scored only two more points when Penn State took a safety early in the third quarter. Following LSU's touchdown, Bahr kicked a 44-yard field goal, the longest in Orange Bowl history to that point. The Lions could have broken the game wide open in the second quarter, but an apparent 65-yard touchdown pass to Herd was called back when an official ruled that the receiver had a foot out of bounds deep in the end zone. Minutes later, Hayman seemed on his way to a touchdown on a 70yard punt return but was halted by another official who ruled that his knee had touched the ground. TV replays clearly showed both calls were wrong, but the Lions were not disheartened. Two plays after Hayman's overturned punt return, Herd made one of the greatest catches in Penn State history. With the ball at the Penn State 28yard line, Herd streaked down the right sideline. Shuman heaved a pass, and Herd reached up high with his left hand at the LSU 35, caught the ball on his fingertips, pulled it into the crook of his arm, clutched it with his right arm and ran for a touchdown. "I really didn't see the catch until seeing the game films because his back was to me," Shuman said. "I threw it like any pass, just trying to lead him down the field, and I apparently overthrew it by a couple of feet. Chuck made all of us look good on that play." The score was 10-7, but that spectacular pass seemed to deflate LSU. Penn State's defense held the Tigers' vaunted offense in check, and a long punt return set up a 1-yard touchdown run by Cappelletti. The Lions went on to win, 16-9. Shuman's leadership and his spot passing (he was 6 of 17 for 157 yards with one TD and one interception) earned him recognition as the game's outstanding offensive player. "Obviously, I was elated," Shuman said. "I kinda felt like the world's tallest midget. We didn't have a great night offensively. Cappy was held to very low yardage. Their eight, nine men in the box opened up our passing game, and Chuck and Gary made some great catches." Cappelletti finished with 50 yards on 26 carries – the lowest total of his career. He later admitted he had sprained an ankle in practice but said the injury

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