It’s the last hurrah! (For five years, anyhow.)
The Nittany Lions and the Pitt Panthers will exchange blows this afternoon for the last time until 1997. As a part of Penn State’s transition to the Big Ten, the traditional rivalry will be put on hold temporarily.
Many fans are disgruntled with both team’s records, and are not looking for much from this final exchange.
The teams, however, look for this to be a heated final exchange.
“You can throw all the records out the window,” quarterback Kerry Collins said. “It’s going to be a backyard brawl. I don’t care if they have one or three wins, they are going to come up here and play very hard.”
Discounting the Panthers’ losing record, Pitt Coach Paul Hackett feels his team’s play prior to the Penn State game is irrelevant to how they will perform in Happy Valley. He said the Panthers do not plan to roll over for the Lions.
“I remember going up there two years ago having a disappointing season, and playing an outstanding football game,” Hackett said. “It is the battle of Pennsylvania, and our team is ready to give it the best we can.”
Penn State offensive lineman John Gerak said the Lions are expecting the best from the Panthers.
“I’m not looking for them to lay down and die for us at 3-7 (Pitt’s record),” Gerak said. “I’m sure they’re not expecting much from us at 6-4.”
In 1984, a 2-7-1 Panther team came to Happy Valley with similar attitudes, and handed a 6-4 Lion team a juicy upset that Penn State didn’t soon forget.
Lion Coach Joe Paterno is a little disheartened with this season, but it isn’t because of the effort put forth by his team thus far.
“You got a bunch of kids who play football and who have worked hard,” Paterno said. “You’ve done everything you can to have a big league season, and it has been a frustrating one. They have played great football against some of the really big teams.”
Paterno hopes that his team will use this frustration in a positive manner, and come out with the big game against Pitt.
“Now there’s a couple of ways you can look at frustration,” he said. “You can all say ‘the heck with it,’ or you can say ‘hey, we owe it to each other,’ and go out and do the best we can.
“The team (wants to) prove that they are not losers, they are winners, and want to go out with a big win against a fine traditional rival like Pitt.”
Despite the last minute 17-16 loss to Notre Dame, Paterno felt he saw some good things from his team.
With a week off prior to the Notre Dame bout, the Lion defense had a chance to go back to the basics, and brush up on some of the fundamentals that were overshadowed by the week to week scouting reports.
“We had a couple of good days to work on our tackling and work on some different things,” Paterno said. “We’re trying to get people in to better position and trying to eliminate some of the mistakes they have made.”
Of the Notre Dame game, Paterno said that he was particularly pleased with the play of Lou Benfatti, Derek Bochna, and has also seen an exceptional effort by Reggie Givens.
“I think that Reggie Givens has played well,” Paterno said. “We have had some problems on the other side of the line so people have been running away from him, but we made some adjustments, and I think that Givens had a big game against Notre Dame.”
On the offensive stance, Paterno was pleased, as usual, with the performance of O.J. McDuffie.
“Offensively, O.J. McDuffie is as good a football player that there is in the country, bar none,” he said.
McDuffie had three receptions for 46 yards from Collins, who was 7-of-28 for 131 yards.
Paterno was quite satisfied with Collins’ showing against the Fighting Irish, and said he was doing quite well despite his lack of experience this season.
“Kerry Collins, in his fourth game, without preseason practice, is still getting used to things,” Paterno said. “He’s not anywhere as near as good as he will be, but overall I felt he did a solid job.”
Even if Collins comes out with another 25 percent completion night, don’t expect to see freshman Wally Richardson at the helm, at least in the near future.
“I think Kerry Collins has done a good job,” Paterno said. “And the day that I think that Richardson is better than Kerry Collins, as a result of practice . . . I’d play him. But right now that is not the case.”
Sticking to his guns, Paterno plans to exploit the inexperience of the young Pitt team, but warns not to underestimate the Panthers.
“They’re not a great defensive team, I am not going to try to kid anybody,” he said. “But they come at you, and if you are not ready for them, they have a good defensive scheme . . . good speed in the secondary, and they hit you. They’ll be tough for us.”
Paterno warned against discrediting Pitt because of the scores of past games, and feels that his team should be every bit as ready for Pitt as in any other game.
“Because their offense has been a little bit concerned about how much they have to score,” he said. “They’ve made a lot of mistakes and put pressure on the defense because of turnovers. For a young defense, they have had to play under a lot of pressure. But they’re a better defensive team, than, I think, the scores would indicate.”
Gerak said if the Lions can avoid placing similar pressure on themselves, that they will put forth a roaring performance.
“I don’t want to make it a high pressure game,” Gerak said. “We play better when we are relaxed . . . I think maybe sometimes we felt that we had to do more than we could, and in that manner, when we felt we had to score more points, and in that respect, we turned out less points because we were trying to do so many things. I think if we settle down, relax, and play our game we will be OK.”
If, in fact, all of these predictions come into play, this final showdown, of sorts, will be a classic Pitt–Penn State matchup. Gerak, however, said that the rivalry will have little to do with the Lions’ performance.
“The series, and rivalries, and all that mean a lot more to the fans than it does to the players, and the team,” he said. “I think a lot of the guys are looking forward to moving on to the Big Ten. But as far as I am concerned, it’s my last home game, so I don’t care if we were playing West Lafayette, it is going to be a big game for me.”