Blue White Illustrated

spect for their programs, their universities, their head football coaches in Coach Flood and Coach Edsall. "But we kind of approach it one game at a time. If you look at Penn State his- torically, we have not really had a true rival per se in the Big Ten. And we're just focused on Penn State and building this program back to where everybody wants it to be." Even when Penn State gets back to full strength, it's hard to picture the team changing its outlook dramatically. If it hasn't really had a Big Ten rival during its two decades of league membership, that's partly because it hasn't really needed one. This is a program that throughout its history has used cham- pionships and bowl appearances as the true measures of success, and the key to achieving those goals is to win lots of games, not just one or two "season- makers." Fans show up on game day to watch sea- son-long storylines play out, not to see the Land Grant Trophy or the Gov- ernor's Victory Bell pa- raded around. "We're Penn State," ath- letic director Sandy Bar- bour said. "What happens on Saturday afternoon with 107,000 people in a stadium is what our fan base, what our community, what our alumni and our university get fired up about. I've seen over the course of one year that it really doesn't matter [who the opponent is]. It's about us. It's about our connections to each other, it's about our drive for excellence." Maybe so, but Rutgers and Maryland are trying to force the issue. In a bid to keep up with not just Penn State but Ohio State, Michigan State and the rest of the powerful Big Ten East Division, they are working to address one area in which they lag behind their opponents: facilities. Rut- gers recently announced major upgrades to its football training center, while Mary- land is about to spend $155 million to transform its former basketball arena into an indoor football com- plex, complete with a locker room that seem- ingly draws its design in- spiration from the USS Enterprise. The latter project is a few years away from completion, but Maryland has already shown that it can compete against Penn State. Last year's Nittany Lion team may have been hindered by its scholarship shortfall, but Edsall be- lieves he can parlay the Terps' victory into the kind of recruiting successes his team will need if it's going to compete on an annual basis. "If you beat a team that you haven't really had any particular success against – when you're 1-35-1 against a program that you played consistently through the '60s, the '70s, the '80s and those eras – to be able to beat them in Happy Valley for the first time [ever] and the first time [anywhere] since 1961, I think it showed kids in our area that we can compete with them and we can win," he said. "And I think kids look at that. High school kids look at that. "Penn State has always had a knack for being able to come down to Maryland and take players up there. We knew if we want- ed to get some recruits, we'd have to beat them on the field. It's no different than when I was [an assistant coach] at Syra- cuse. At one time, Syracuse dominated Penn State. And then all of a sudden, there was a stretch where Penn State dominated Syracuse. And we beat them two years in a row [in 1987 and '88], and it helped us with recruiting. So any time you can beat teams on the field, it helps you in recruit- ing." Maryland and Rutgers aren't the only Eastern schools that would like to get a rivalry going with Penn State. There's also Pitt. The Panthers may not be Big Ten members, but that hasn't stopped first- year coach Pat Narduzzi from lobbying 2 0 1 5 P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L DOING THE WAVE Franklin acknowleges Penn State fans follow- ing the Nittany Lions' comeback victory at Rutgers last season. It was the Lions' eighth consecutive win over the Knights, who were playing their first Big Ten game that night. Photo by Steve Manuel

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