Blue White Illustrated

FIGHTERS early overcome with emotion a8er watching his team upset Wisconsin on the 5nal day of the 2012 season, Bill O'Brien gave a postgame interview in which he used one of those words you're not supposed to use on live TV. Asked how his players had managed to stay focused throughout a heart-on-sleeve senior day, O'Brien choked back tears as joyous fans pumped their 5sts behind him and told ESPN2's sideline reporter it was because "they're a bunch of [expletives]." He later tried to claim he'd used the word 5ghters, which ac- tually sounds pretty similar to that other word when you're trying to make yourself heard over 90,000 people. But he later admitted that his own mother didn't believe him. O'Brien's ga6e became something of a running joke during the Coaches Caravan a few months later, but behind it was a serious sentiment. These guys really were a bunch of… 5ghters. And when they proved it again a year later with an even bigger upset of the Badgers, this time in Madison, O'Brien o6ered a less profane version of that infamous sideline interview. "You just can't say enough about the resiliency of this football team," he said. "When the kids are down, they come back. Something bad happens, they con- tinue to come back." The one guy who didn't come back was, of course, O'Brien himself. He le8 Penn State shortly a8er that 31-24 shocker over the 14th-ranked Badgers, returning to the NFL to coach the Houston Tex- ans. But his former team still has a lot of 5ght le8 in it. In fact, the Nittany Lions' resilience in the face of long odds has been their de5ning characteristic this season. Penn State is getting set to face Southern Cali- fornia in the Rose Bowl, the team's 5rst major bowl appearance since it played the Trojans in 2009 on the very same 5eld it will see on Jan. 2. Pasadena has not been kind to the Nittany Lions, starting with their 5rst appearance in 1923 when they got stuck in tra7c on the way to the stadium, and continuing with the bittersweet 1995 game in which they beat Oregon to complete an undefeated season but still lost the national championship in what amounted to a popularity contest with Nebraska. Then there was the 2009 game, in which USC's Mark Sanchez threw for four touchdowns and ran for an- other. That was not an enjoyable a8ernoon for the Blue and White. N By claiming a Rose Bowl berth with their stunning rally in the Big Ten Championship Game, the Nittany Lions show yet again that this is a team that can never be counted out OF P O S T S E A S O N P R E V I E W >> P E N N S T A T E A BUNCH

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