Friday, July 13, 2007

PSU Rivalry Perspective

Mike on Black Shoe Diaries has written an interesting article on the ND - Penn State rivalry. He recaps the eighteen meetings between the schools and it is interesting that the majority of these games took place in the 80's through the early 90's when PSU joined the Big 10.
Better yet is his assessment of the rivalry from a Nittany Lion perspective. I think he is very correct in assuming the rivalry means more to PSU than ND and I was unaware of how the void in the PSU-Pitt rivalry has affected PSU fans. Penn State has yet to develop any serious Big Ten rivalries because they have not yet generated the beatdowns and dream-ending upsets that are the heart of a rivalry with any of their Big T(elev)en brethren.
What I do remember are the close, exciting games in the 80's. I was at many of those games and I always had a certain amount of respect for the Lions in their throwback unis and team style. JoePa takes a beating and is a cantankerous old goat, but he is /was? (if the zombie rumors are true) harder to dislike than a Schembechler or Jimmy Johnson.

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