PSU Posts One of The Great Runs in College Football History

In what will be an occasional look back at Penn State history, today we’ll start with what is arguably one of the most impressive runs in Penn State or even college football history. It is a 15-game stretch of Penn State games starting in late 1981 and culminating with a National Championship in 1982.

As prologue to that run, aggressive scheduling gave Penn State the nation’s toughest schedules in both 1981 and 1982.

In the 1960s and 70s Penn States finished undefeated and untied in 1968, 1969, 1973. So, in the late 1970s Penn State made a conscious effort to schedule national games. The eleven year span from 1980 through 1990 would include national regular-season games. In that stretch Penn State scheduled Alabama (10x), Notre Dame (10x), Texas A&M, Miami (3x), Nebraska (4x) and Texas (3x). If you count the eastern independents as Penn State’s “de-facto” conference games then in the “non-conference” regular-season schedules Penn State played 20 games against Top 20 teams including 17 against Top 10 teams. By comparison in the last 11 years Penn State has played 2 scheduled non-conference game against ranked opponents (#3 Alabama in 2011 and #22 Auburn in 2021).

At the same time, eastern independent football teams were getting better. In the era from 1976 through 1988 Eastern teams played for the National Title 6 of 13 years. Pitt played for and won the National Title in 1976. Penn State played for the National title in 1978, 1982, 1985 and 1986 winning it all in both 1982 and 1986. In 1988 West Virginia played for the National title and in 1987 Syracuse finished undefeated but, ranked behind Oklahoma and Miami, was kept out of playing for the National Title.  

Back to the 1970s, when those national games were scheduled Joe Paterno wrote a letter to his staff. In that letter he issued a challenge to himself and all the football coaches to recruit and work even harder and to meet the steep climb ahead.

Joe also became Athletic Director in January 1980 and set up a stand-alone Athletic Department with an eye on securing its financial solvency for the future. Prior to that the athletic department had been a part of the college of Health and Human Development.

Joe also understood the changing TV landscape and made sure Penn State would be a constant presence on the air after a landmark US Supreme Court ruling changed the future of televised college sports forever.

While all this was happening Penn State started the 1980s finishing in the Top Ten in 1980 and 1981. The stretch that begins at the end of the 1981 season is where we want to focus. The stretch from late November 1981 through the 1982 season was among the most impressive of any team in college football history.  

That stretch mirrors the current 15 games needed to win a National Title playoff—the last 3 games of 1982 mirror a playoff with ND being a ranked conference title-game caliber game, Pitt mirroring a final 4 opponent and #1 Georgia being the National Title playoff game.

So with that here’s a look at that 15-game run that culminated with the 1982 National Championship..

1981

            (13) Penn State 24      Notre Dame 21

   (11) Penn State 48      at (1) Pitt 14               

            (7) Penn State 26       vs (8) USC 10      The Fiesta Bowl

                        Final Rank (3rd)

1982

            (8) Penn State 31        Temple 14

            (7) Penn State 39       Maryland 31               

            (8) Penn State 49       Rutgers 14

            (8) Penn State 27       (2) Nebraska 24        

            (3) Penn State 21        at (4) Alabama 42

            (8) Penn State 28       Syracuse 7

            (8) Penn State 24       at (13) West Virginia 0 

            (7) Penn State 52        at Boston College 17  

            (7) Penn State 54        NC State 0

            (5) Penn State 24       at (13) Notre Dame 14

            (2) Penn State 19       (5) Pitt 10                   

            (2) Penn State 27        vs (1) Georgia 23      The Sugar Bowl      

                        Final Rank (1st)

There are some interesting notes along that run. Penn State was 7-1 against Top 20 teams (there were only 20 ranked teams back then). Included in that was a 5-1 record against Top 10 teams and a 2-0 record against #1 teams. And only 2 of those 8 teams against ranked opponents were at home in Beaver Stadium, 4 were on the road and 2 were in bowl games.

Digging deeper you’ll also find more impressive notes. In those 15 games, Penn State was 4-0 in games against current or future Heisman Trophy winners beating 1981 winner Marcus Allen of USC, 1982 winner Herschel Walker of Georgia, 1983 winner Mike Rozier of Nebraska and 1984 winner Doug Flutie of Boston College.

As for opposing quarterbacks Penn State was 5-0 against future NFL starters including a 3-0 record against future Pro Bowl QBs Dan Marino of Pitt and Boomer Esiason of Maryland and had a 4-0 against QBs that started in the Super Bowl (Marino, Esiason and West Virginia’s Jeff Hostetler).  

The average margin of victory across these 15 games was 16.8 points per game (32.2 to 15.4 average scoring) while the average margin of victory against ranked teams was 11.2 (27 to 15.8 points per game).

And in 1982 Penn State became the first school in college football history to win the National Title while playing the Nation’s Toughest schedule (as rated by the NCAA).

Not a bad bit of football…….