After playing football as an independent for the previous 100 years, Penn State joined the Big Ten conference in time for the 1993 football season. Even though they became the 11th member, the Nittany Lions fit in like they’d always belonged. Head Coach Joe Paterno’s teams played a physical, smash-mouth style of football and joined Michigan and Ohio State to become one of the best teams in the conference almost immediately.
Meanwhile, Nebraska – still in the old Big Eight conference – was in the midst of a rise to the top of the college football mountain. Starting that same season, the Huskers played for the National Championship the next three seasons and four of the next five, winning trophies in ’94, ’95 and ‘97 for Head Coach Tom Osborne. They too were an old-school, run-it-down-your-throat program with a big, bad offensive line that was nicknamed “The Pipeline.”
1994 Battle of Unbeatens Couldn’t Take Place
In 1994 both teams went unbeaten but couldn’t be matched in a bowl game due to conference restrictions. The Huskers beating Miami in the Orange Bowl carried more weight with the poll voters than the Lions’ win over Oregon in the Rose Bowl.
What would have happened if they’d met? It would have been a great game.
Back then, both teams were big, physical outfits that focused on winning the line of scrimmage, running the ball effectively and playing rugged defense. Big Ten-style football.
Penn State has never varied much from that formula, even after Paterno was replaced by Bill O’Brien and he was replaced by James Franklin, the style of football never really changed.
At Nebraska, when Osborne’s successor Frank Solich was fired and NFL vet Bill Callahan was hired, things changed…A LOT. The West Coast Offense replaced the old triple option, and as NU moved on from Callahan to Bo Pelini to Mike Riley to Scott Frost, they morphed even more into spread-the-field, finesse program. And they’ve had issues competing in the smash-mouth Big Ten since joining the league in 2011.
Nebraska picked the wrong time (and the wrong conference) to change styles.
This is now year three of the Matt Rhule Era at Nebraska, and the former Penn State linebacker is doing his best to bring back a physical style to Husker football. So far this season, the results are mixed. The Big Red has beaten old-school physical Big Ten foes Michigan State and Northwestern, but has fallen short against Michigan and Minnesota. The bludgeoning they took in Minneapolis a month ago is likely the reason oddsmakers don’t give them much of a chance at Happy Valley this week when Rhule brings his team back to face his alma mater.
Facing Big 12 foe Cincinnati? A win. Old Pac-12 style teams like USC and UCLA? A split. But Nebraska hasn’t proven they’re up to the task of consistently winning a physical battle on either side of the line of scrimmage, Big Ten-style. Not yet anyway.
The game against a bowl-hungry Penn State squad on Saturday, followed by the regular season finale against arch-rival Iowa the day after Thanksgiving, will give Big Red followers a chance to measure their team against two of the most physical outfits in the Big Ten. Win and Husker Nation can say their program is back. Lose, and it will show that even after 15 years as a Big Ten conference member, Nebraska still is yet to truly belong.
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