Penn State Football: a look back at the Nittany Lions’ struggles against top 5 opponents over the years

Following an embarrassing loss at Michigan, there has been a lot of discussion about the lack of success Penn State Football has had against top five teams.

However, it goes back far beyond this current regime, and historically, the Nittany Lions have almost always struggled against top five opponents.

It should be noted that playing against a top five team means you’re playing against one of the best teams in the country, so it’s unrealistic to expect to win those games more often than not, regardless of who is in charge.

NOTE: All of these numbers were compiled by going through each season’s schedule on Sports Reference. They have the rankings and outcomes for each game.

Nearly three quarters of a century ago, Rip Engle took over as the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions in 1950. Over the course of 16 seasons, he compiled a 2-8 record against teams ranked in the top five.

In 1966, Joe Paterno began his reign at the helm of Penn State Football–one that would see a lot of highs and lows over the course of four and a half decades.

Despite many wins early in his tenure, Paterno struggled to defeat the best of the best. In his first 10 career games against a top five opponent, Penn State Football compiled a record of just 1-9. His second win against a top five opponent did not come until 1978: his 13th season as the head coach of the Nittany Lions.

Across 46 seasons and 409 total wins, Joe Paterno put together a record of 13-33 against top five opponents. Eight of those 13 wins came in the 1980s.

His third win against a top five team came in 1981, his 16th season as the head man of Penn State Football. That sparked a run that saw them pick up eight wins over top five teams in a six-year span. They went 8-4 against top five competition during that stretch.

It took one of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport nearly two decades to start seeing consistent success against the best of the best.

After that though, they once again went cold.

Joe Paterno would coach another 25 years following that 1986 campaign, and over those 25 years, compiled a record of just 3-17 against top five teams. His last win over a top five opponent came in a week one win over Arizona in 1999. Paterno coached for parts of 12 seasons in the 21st century and failed to record a single top five win.

That also means that the Nittany Lions did not have to go through a single top five opponent to win either of their Big Ten Championships under Paterno this century (2005 and 2008). They did have to play a top five USC team in the Rose Bowl in the 2008 season, but that was after they had already won the conference in the regular season. The Trojans beat the Nittany Lions 38-24 in that Rose Bowl.

Following Paterno’s dismissal from the program in 2011, interim head coach Tom Bradley was not tasked with facing a top five opponent in the remainder of that season, so we’ll pass over him.

During his short-lived tenure in Happy Valley, Bill O’Brien faced just one top five opponent. That was against Ohio State in 2013 in a game that the Buckeyes won easily.

Then in 2014, in walks the current head coach of Penn State Football: James Franklin. Like O’Brien, he faced just one top five opponent in his first two seasons at the helm, and it was a loss at Ohio State in 2015.

In 2016, though, he picked up the program’s first (and so far only) win against a top five opponent this century when the Nittany Lions knocked off Ohio State in dramatic fashion. Since then, though, things haven’t gone well for Franklin against top five competition.

Care to venture a guess as to what his record is against top five teams?

I’ll give you a hint: it’s a number you already saw earlier in this article.

He’s 1-9 against top five teams. The exact same record Joe Paterno had in his first 10 games against top five competition.

Franklin is in just his ninth season with the Nittany Lions, and as mentioned earlier, Paterno did not pick up his second top five win until year 13.

Do with this information what you will, but know one thing: beating a top five team is not easy to do regardless of who’s calling the shots, and it shows. No matter who it’s been at the helm, Penn State Football has struggled mightily against the best of the best for most of the last 75 years; and for those who have found success against the top five, it’s taken some time.