Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/861263
2 0 1 7 K I C K O F F S P E C I A L this data, so why not give thought to looking deeper at those numbers, and I was pretty sure no team had accom- plished what the '82 Penn State team did," Contz said. "So I really started cranking out numbers, and in January of 2015, I told my wife, 'Melanie, I'm thinking about writing a book about this.' I realized we had a 35-year team re- union coming up in the fall of 2017, and so in the spring of 2015 I began thinking about marrying the statistical oddities I'd discovered with the stories I knew about in the locker room." Contz has compiled all the data in a series of analytical charts in one chapter and an appendix in which he makes the basic arguments that document his point. He readily admits his use of the last three games of Penn State's 1981 near-miss season, including the classic 48-14 demolition of then-No. 1 Pitt, might be "somewhat flawed and uncon- ventional." However, he believes there is justification for his approach, in that the last three games of the '81 season led to the national championship in '82. In his later years of coaching, Paterno often said that the 1981 team was better and more skilled than the '82 squad but not as lucky. That was especially true on the offensive line, where Contz became a starter as a junior, surrounded by four senior NFL-bound teammates: guards Mike Munchak and Sean Farrell, both of whom were taken in the first round of the 1982 draft, center Jim Romano (sec- AT ARMS' LENGTH Contz (79) tan- gles with Pitt's Bill Maas during Penn State's regular-season finale against the Panthers in 1982. The Nittany Lions won the game and went on to claim the national championship in the Sugar Bowl. Members of that historic team will get together for a 35th anniversary celebration on the weekend of the Pitt game next month. Photo cour- tesy of Bill Contz