Joe Paterno’s name is forever tarnished by the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal which is really too bad because he was one of the top college football coaches of all time.
Not very many coaches can say that in their first 8 seasons as a head coach, 3 of those seasons his team went undefeated. But, Joe Paterno can say that. Nobody else can say they spent their entire coaching career and 62 years at the same university, also.
Paterno played college football at Brown University in the late 1940’s. His head coach was Rip Engle and Engle hired Paterno when Engle got the head coaching job at Penn State in 1950.
Engel posted a 104-48-4 record as the head man for the Nittany Lions.
When Engel stepped down after the 1965 season, they hired Joe Paterno to take his place.
After struggling with a 5-5 record in 1966, Paterno had the Nittany Lions playing well by his second season in 1967.
His 1967 season saw Penn State finish 8-2-1. It was the 1968 season that Paterno really made a name for himself. The Nittany Lions finished the season 11-0 capped off by a tight 15-14 win over the Kansas Jayhawks in the Orange Bowl.
But, 1968 was the year of the Buckeyes and Woody Hayes. Ohio State won the national championship with an impressive Rose Bowl win over USC. Paterno’s Penn State team finished 2nd in the final AP Poll.
That 1968 team was led by consensus All American Tight End Ted Kwalik, Quarterback Chuck Burkhart, and Running Back Charlie Pittman on Offense. But, these teams were mostly about Defense. Consensus All American Linebacker Dennis Onkotz, Pro Football Hall of Fame Linebacker
Jack Ham, and outstanding Defensive Tackle Mike Reid led the dominating Defense.
1969 was another banner year for Paterno and his team. Burkhart was back at Quarterback, but now they had sophomore Running Backs Lydell Mitchell and Franco Harris. Mitchell and Harris went on to tremendous success in the NFL later with Harris making it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Harris and Linebacker Jack Ham were teammates again with the Pittsburgh Steelers and they were important pieces of 4 Super Bowl championships.
The 1969 team had a couple of close calls. One came at Kansas State and those were years before
Bill Snyder and they were terrible. Penn State won the game, 17-14, but pollsters were not impressed. They had a tough time at Syracuse as well before winning 15-14.
Ohio State was just blowing people off the field in 1969 until they were surprised by Michigan in their last regular season game. Texas replaced Ohio State as the number 1 team with their brand new Wishbone Offense and then the Longhorns beat #2 Arkansas in the Big Shootout. President Richard Nixon was in attendance and he crowned the Texas Longhorns national champions which angered Joe Paterno greatly.
The Longhorns were obligated to go to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas. The Nittany Lions chose to go to the Orange Bowl in Miami.
Texas won in a come from behind victory over Notre Dame and the Penn State Nittany Lions beat Big 8 champion Missouri 10-3.
Missouri had a high powered Offense, but the stout Penn State Defense shut them down.
The 1970 season was a different story. They hadn’t lost a game since early 1967 and had a 22 game winning streak going when 18th ranked Colorado just blew them out. They got off to a 2-3 start with losses also coming against Wisconsin and Syracuse.
They still had Franco Harris and Lydell Mitchell, but the Quarterback position was unsettled as they tried Mike Cooper, Bob Parsons and John Hufnagel.
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Harris and Mitchell had gone on to the NFL when the 1972 season came along. But, Hufnagel was an experienced Quarterback by then and they had John Cappalletti at Running Back.
The Nittany Lions lost to 8th ranked Tennessee in game one, and then to Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl.
The college football season in 1973 may have been the strangest of all time.
After the regular season was over, there were still 7 undefeated teams. Alabama was ranked #1 and was 11-0. #2 Notre Dame was 10-0, while Oklahoma was 3rd and 10-0-1. Ohio State was 9-0-1 and Michigan was 10-0-1. The Penn State Nittany Lions were also unbeaten and ranked 6th with an 11-0 record. Penn State was still not getting any respect and this was Paterno’s 3rd unbeaten season in 8 years as a head coach.
The other unbeaten team was Miami of Ohio of the Mid American Conference (MAC).
Notre Dame beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and claimed the AP national title. Oklahoma was on probation.
Ohio State and Michigan had tied to end their season in the legendary 10 Year War. The Big 10 schools voted on who would go to the Rose Bowl and the Buckeyes and Woody Hayes won.
In the Rose Bowl, the Buckeyes crushed a good Southern Cal team, 42-21. If not for the tie against Michigan, the Buckeyes certainly could have been the national champion. Michigan had to stay home because of silly Big 10 rules.
Penn State beat LSU in the Orange Bowl to remain undefeated at 12-0.
Miami of Ohio remained among the unbeaten after they beat Florida, 16-7, in the Tangerine Bowl.
Of the 7 undefeated teams at the end of the 1973 regular season, 6 were still unbeaten after the Bowls.
Penn State, with Heisman Trophy winning John Cappalletti at Running Back felt they got the shaft once again.
Paterno and Penn State finally won that elusive national championship in 1982 and that was with a 1 loss team that finished 11-1.
They won another championship in 1986 with a 12-0 team that beat Miami in the Fiesta Bowl.
Paterno’s best team was in 1994 when they ended the year with another 12-0 record, but they finished 2nd in the final Polls because of an incredible Nebraska team that season.
Joe Paterno finished his first 8 seasons with an impressive 75 – 13 – 1 which was made worse by his initial 5-5 season.
3 unbeaten seasons in his first 8 is also pretty incredible. But, the most mind blowing stat of all is 3 undefeated seasons without a national championship.
A lot of people despise Paterno now because of the Jerry Sandusky fiasco. But, love him, or hate him, you do have to admit that Joe Paterno was a really good football coach.