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By Neil Rudel
nrudel@altoonamirror.com
"Having Wisconsin as an opening game is different than the way college football normally starts out."
That was one of the first statements James Franklin uttered during his weekly press conference Tuesday previewing the Nittany Lions' season opener Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium (noon, Fox).
While he's right that most of college football's marquee programs -- Penn State still qualifies -- don't open on the road against big-name teams, some take part in neutral-site matchups such as Clemson vs. Georgia and Alabama vs. Miami this weekend.
LSU visits UCLA and Notre Dame is at Florida State so it does happen.
It just usually doesn't happen with Penn State, which prefers to ease its way into the season against, say, Idaho.
But the Big Ten schedule maker ordered up Wisconsin, and what an opportunity it is for both teams.
Win and immeasurable confidence is gained, especially when you're coming off a losing season. Lose, at least respectably, and there's an entire season with which to recover.
The Badgers mark the Lions' toughest-season opening assignment in 20 years -- when Miami came calling in 2001 to christen renovated Beaver Stadium. Talk about the wrong opponent. The Hurricanes won 33-7, went unbeaten and won the national title.
Penn State's only highlight was Adam Taliaferro walking out of the tunnel in the most emotional moment in Beaver Stadium history.
You'd have to go back another 18 years to 1983 to find an equal season-opening opponent, and that was Nebraska -- the old Nebraska, which was ranked No. 1 -- in the Kickoff Classic.
The Lions were still hung over from winning their first national title and lost 44-6. The Cornhuskers were plenty motivated from Penn State's 1982 red-zone sideline expansion, which allowed room for Mike McCloskey's controversial, out-of-bounds catch to set up the game-winning score a year earlier.
There have been other challenging debuts, such as Kickoff Classic opponents Georgia Tech (1991) and USC (1996), but Giants Stadium was a friendly second home to Penn State.
The highest-ranked true road opponent was Maryland in 1985 when the Terps were ranked No. 7 (Beano Cook had them No. 1). The Lions were smarting from a 6-5 non-bowl season but still won, 20-18, a springboard to two straight unbeaten regular seasons and their second national title (1986) in five years.
Which brings us to Saturday and No. 12 Wisconsin -- arguably the Lions toughest true road opener ever. Maryland may have had a higher ranking in 1985, but Penn State had owned the Terps at that time.
The Badgers finished 4-3 last year and had their season wrecked by Covid. But when they were right early in the season, they scored 45 or more points against Illinois and at Michigan. Starting quarterback Graham Mertz, who was 20-of-21 in the opener with five touchdowns vs. the Illini, returns.
Wisconsin is always known for its ground-and-pound mentality, and Penn State's biggest question mark is its defensive line.
The intriguing part of the Penn State-Wisconsin series is it's been very even (10-7 PSU since joining the Big Ten), both have won on the other guy's field, and the Lions claimed their only conference title game by beating Wisconsin in 2016.
Franklin has never been to Wisconsin. How the Lions open Saturday will go a long way toward determining how soon he'd like to go back.
Penn State ties
n Former Williamsport and Penn State standout Gary Brown serves as the Badgers' running backs coach. Brown has spent the better part of 20 years in coaching, most of it in the NFL and most recently (2013-19) with the Dallas Cowboys.
n Dean Engram, son of former PSU receiving great Bobby Engram, is one of Wisconsin's punt returners. Engram, a sophomore, is a product of Columbia, Maryland, where his dad is on the Baltimore Ravens' coaching staff.
Rudel can be reached at nrudel@altoonamirror.com.