It’s that time of year again, when we are left with nothing ahead but a barren wasteland of college football nothingness. Sure, at least we have the NFL playoffs to enjoy, specifically watching Penn State’s new head coach call the plays for New England as they destroy the Broncos. But with only the brief oasis of the Blue-White Game three months out, and the enigma that is the Bill O’Brien era weighing on everyone, we all need some relief.
So that leads to our 2012 LBU Videos season kickoff here at Linebacker-U.com. This is where we start throwing ideas against the wall for which games you’d like to see turned into our ever-popular 10 Minutes or Less series. For those of you not familiar (you should be!) with 10 MOL, what we do is take old Penn State football videos, chop them into highlight reels about 10 minutes
Welcome to Linebacker-U.com’s annual (hopefully it stays an annual event) Special Bowl Game Edition of 10 Minutes or Less. This year, Penn State travels down to Dallas for the Ticket City Bowl, played in the old Cotton Bowl, against the Houston Cougars. These teams have met twice before this weekend, but only once in the modern era. Today we bring you the video highlights of that classic 1977 battle…
Back in the day, scheduling tough non-regional opponents was commonplace for major college football teams. Considering there were only 11 games to work with, and resume was everything in the eyes of the pollsters, it was a system that–for all its faults–gave fans and viewers more great matchups than ever before. Penn State obliged in its 1977 home opener, when the No. 9 Houston Cougars came to Happy Valley to face the No. 10 Nittany Lions.
There is simply too much going on right now to put together a longer intro to this post in my own words, so I’ll just rip off Wikipedia for the basics.
“Each team fought to overcome the other and the scoring lead was exchanged five times. Penn State running back and future NFL star Curt Warner rolled up 238 yards, nearly matching the entire Nebraska team ground production. Penn State pulled ahead on an early 4th quarter touchdown and added a field goal with 4:54 remaining to extend their lead to 6 points, and the Cornhuskers were unable to muster a response before time expired. Nebraska fell out of the rankings for the first time since a one week absence early in the 1977 season.” Penn State would crush No. 1 Pitt on the final game of the regular season, finish 10-2 and ranked #3 in the polls. Some
Former Penn State and NFL linebacker Keith Goganious approached me a few months ago, inquiring if we here at LBU would be able to edit a highlight reel of his senior season, 1991. Obviously, we would never turn down one of Linebacker U’s finest. After weeks of editing, I finally finished up this video. It’s been unlisted on YouTube since August, because I was originally hoping to run it concurrently with a Q&A with Keith. But we haven’t gotten around to that part yet. And with this week’s 10 Minutes or Less video unavailable (my boneheaded mistake, not burning the VHS tape to DVD on time), what better way to fill the gap than revel in what makes Penn State, “Linebacker U” so great. Enjoy!
This game was a classic Homecoming beatdown delivered against an inferior Big Ten foe. Coming off a controversial overtime loss at Michigan (a game which, would lead to the eventual adoption of instant replay in college football), Penn State was looking to take their frustrations out on someone, and that someone just happened to be a Northwestern team that was missing its starting QB Brett Basanez to an injury, and was forced to start an inexperienced in sophomore in Tony Stauss. PSU meanwhile, boasted a stingy defense led by Michael Haynes and Jimmy Kennedy on the defensive line, and an offense led by Zack Mills and a trio of Johnsons (brothers Larry and Tony, and unrelated Bryant). Larry would end up breaking Curt Warner’s single-game rushing record by racking up 257 yards on the ground, a record he would break again a few weeks later at Indiana with a 327
Brees had already become a household name, throwing for an NCAA record 83 pass attempts the previous week against Wisconsin (in which Brees also racked up nearly 500 yards passing). What Brees hadn’t faced up until this game however, was a defense the likes of Penn State’s. LaVar Arrington, Courtney Brown, Brandon Short, and a slew of other blue and white clad defensive studs were more than happy to introduce Brees to what a real defense looked like,
Yes, Iowa conidered these uniforms to be acceptable. Just ignore them.
Penn State was fresh off its 1994 NATIONAL TITLE. But without several of the best skill players ever to play in Happy Valley, the Nittany Lions dropped two early games. Entering Kinnick Stadium, Penn State was only 1-2 in the Big Ten, 5-2 overall. The Hawkeyes were actually ranked higher than Penn State, albeit by one spot in the polls.
In usual fashion, Penn State allowed the opposition to hang around for most of the game. And in what would eventually become usual fashion, Iowa took advantage of that lack of a killer instinct by the Nittany Lions, taking the lead in the second half. The game seemed to being slipping away from Penn State, but the offense just kept chugging along, wearing down the Hawkeye D. All the while, the Penn State defense forced a
