Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/861263
P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> State's Rocky Washington and Pitt's Dwight Collins had each been multi- sport athletes at Beaver Falls High School. Pitt's defense returned virtually all of its starters from the previous season, in- cluding Bill Maas, Chris Doleman, Dave Puzzuoli, Rick Kraynak, Flynn, and Tim Lewis. All would go on to play in the NFL. Their offense, however, was an enigma. Despite featuring future NFL All-Pros like Dan Marino, Jimbo Covert, and Fralic, Pitt had trouble scoring points. The Panthers had managed just seven points against North Carolina, 14 (plus a safety) against West Virginia, 14 at Syra- cuse, and 16 in their lone loss of the sea- son to Notre Dame. Still, this was a very dangerous and well-coached team com- ing to town. Making things even more interesting was that both teams were ranked in the top five, a rarity for a rivalry game this late in the year. As was the case the previous year, we felt we had an advantage in re- gard to the schedule in that Pitt had played WVU and Notre Dame at home while we had beaten both those teams on the road. In the 1982 version, Pitt moved the ball well during the first 30 minutes while we did ourselves no favors by turning the ball over twice. Both factors enabled the Panthers to take a 7–3 lead into the locker room at halftime. Just like the week before in South Bend, we had to come from behind in the second half to keep our national championship hopes alive. Paterno elected to have the wind at our back for the third quarter, and that turned out to be a critical factor in the game's outcome. The increasingly un- predictable wind gusts Marino faced at the start of the second half really ham- pered his ability to move his team through the air while our defense clamped down on Pitt's ground game. Their kicking game faltered twice when their normally reliable punter, Tony Rec- chia, shanked one ball to set us up inside the Pitt 40-yard line and then mishan- dled another snap and tried but failed to run for a first down. We took advantage of great field posi- tion throughout the third quarter and scored the next 13 points. Our lone touchdown came after Todd Blackledge THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON Members of Penn State's 1982 team gather at Beaver Stadium during the 25th anniversary cele- bration of their national champi- onship. The Nittany Lions went 11-1 that year, wrapping up their regular season with a 19-10 come-from-behind victory over archrival Pitt. Photo by An- nemarie Mountz