Blue White Illustrated

YOUTH MOVEMENT Dozier, a freshman at the time, put the game out of reach with a third-quarter touchdown run. Photo courtesy of Paterno-Pattee Library Archives W hen Penn State's new head foot- ball coach, Bill O'Brien, spoke to the media for the first time in early January, he couldn't wait Long before PSU welcomed his brother, Tom O'Brien had his own encounter with the Nittany Lions | B L U E W H I T E A GAME TO REMEMBER H I S T O R Y L O U P R A T O to tell everyone that his older brother Tom played in the only game ever be- tween Penn State and Brown – the alma mater of the O'Brien brothers and the man Bill was succeeding, Joe Paterno. Tom was sitting in the front row of the room at the Nittany Lion Inn, and Bill asked his brother to stand up. "I'm really happy that he's here," O'Brien said. "Quick note about Tom. In 1983 he was a sophomore at Brown. Most people here probably re- member this: Brown played Penn State in Beaver Stadium, and he claims as a sophomore to have made a tackle on the kickoff team. We've got to go check the film and see if that's correct, but that's a pretty neat little nugget about him." I knew instantly that I would soon be visiting the Penn State Paterno-Pattee Sports Archives to look at that game film. The date was Nov. 5, 1983, and I was at the game as a fan with my wife, Carole. There are three things I remember about that day: Penn State won easily; Carole and I met a lot of Brown fans, who were just happy to be in a big-time college football atmos- phere; and we tailgated in an unre- served parking spot in the grass where the Bryce Jordan Center is today. Penn State was playing in its 10th game of the year, the fifth at home, and the team was fighting back from a dis- astrous start in which it lost its first W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M C O N T R I B U T O R three games. That start included an embarrassing 44-6 rout by preseason No. 1 Nebraska in the first Kickoff Clas- sic. The Nittany Lions were coming off their first national championship sea- son in 1982, and the stunning loss to Nebraska was followed by an even more shocking 14-3 home loss to Cincinnati in what remains one of the biggest upsets of the Paterno era. But after another defeat, against Iowa at home, Penn State reversed course with five consecutive victories, including a 34-28 upset over No. 3 Al- abama at Beaver Stadium. Then a week before the Brown game, Doug Flutie led Boston College to its first win over Penn State, 27-17, in Foxboro, in what BC players then called "the greatest victo- ry in Boston College history." If Brown had beaten Penn State, that would have made the Nebraska, Cincinnati and Boston College losses seem like pillow fights. Brown was not even a power in the Ivy League then, and like the rest of the Ivy schools did not give scholarships, hold spring practices or play freshmen. Brown wouldn't even have been on the sched- ule if not for two of its Ivy League ri- vals and Tennessee. About 10 years earlier, Tennessee had backed out of a two-game series at Beaver Stadium that had followed games at Knoxville in 1971 and '72, both of which were Volunteers victo- ries. To fill the void, Penn State went after old Ivy League rivals of the ear- ly 20th century – Yale and Penn, but both declined. So, Brown agreed to vis- A P R I L 3 0 , 2 0 1 2 29

• Cover