Sunday Column: Lions’ Next Playoff Step ‘Wakes Up The Echoes’ of a Wonderful Rivalry in Dire Need of Renewal

Sometimes, the universe corrects itself.

For all the annual handwringing (most of it coming from the western part of the state) about whether Penn State and Pitt should play every season, the natural rival that the Nittany Lions have needed all this time has always been Notre Dame.

Two perennially strong programs from excellent schools, with rabid fan and alumni bases and distinctive, lucrative national brands. When they battled in the 80s and early 90s as independents, it was the marquee game on both teams’ schedules. When Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1993, it was somewhat understandable the Irish would rotate off the schedule … although, Notre Dame, positioned smack dab in the middle of Big Ten country, was already playing teams from that conference each season anyway.

But aside from a fan-servicey, mostly forgettable home-and-home split in the mid-2000s, this series has long been dormant. It took the expanded college playoff to renew it again. And if anyone—Pat Kraft, Pete Bevacqua, James Franklin, Marcus Freeman, hell, Tony Petitti—has any sense, this won’t be the only matchup between these teams we see for another decade plus.

I grew up in a Catholic family. My grandfather, my oldest uncle, and my priest were huge Notre Dame fans; my father, a true blue-and-white Penn Stater. My earliest memories of the Nittany Lions’ real rivals weren’t of Ohio State or Michigan but of Lou Holtz and Chris Zorich and Rick Mirer. Those games just felt bigger somehow, able to change the tone of the entire season depending on the outcome.

If you’re reading this, you’re a Penn State fan. And the odds are pretty good there is someone in your family tree or your office or your group of buddies that is a Notre Dame fan. This week is going to be one of excitement and fear for both fan bases, given the stakes of Thursday night’s semifinal, but it will also be one of pent-up pride and animosity between two fan bases that have longed to claim superiority over the other even as they’ve swum in different ponds for the past 30 years. (Exhibit A: The collective outrage when any of the talking heads on ESPN had the temerity to suggest Notre Dame should jump Penn State in the CFP rankings a month before those rankings meant anything)

Listen, I get how tough scheduling non-conference games can be, when a major program’s top priorities are 1) Securing enough home games 2) Forecasting whether a team might be crappy enough to ensure you win the game by the time you play them six years from now but also decent enough to ensure you sell tickets for that game and 3) Securing enough home games. And I also know that won’t get any easier as the Big Ten and SEC continue to absorb what’s left of the power conference pickings, Borg-style (resistance is futile but the TV paychecks are sweet). And the best way to earn enough wins to reach future playoffs probably isn’t signing on for yearly games against opponents who are as likely as you to reach said playoff.

But admit it: You were pulling for Notre Dame to beat Georgia and turn onto a collision course with the Nittany Lions, and not just because the Irish have (marginally) less blue-chip talent than the Bulldogs. Penn State is “unrivaled,” which is a tagline that grows increasingly less silly as Franklin’s team approaches college football’s summit but, in another sense of the word, reveals the blank space this program has for a true nemesis, one that Ohio State or Michigan or anyone in the Big Ten has never quite been able to fill. Notre Dame was once as close to that kind of foe as anyone (yes, Narducci, even more than Pitt), and it’s not a stretch at all to imagine it could be again. Does it have to be an every-year thing? No, but, say, six meetings every 10 years would be doable, if the schedule-makers wanted it badly enough.

The ticket sales of Thursday’s game might not show administrators the potential for this series renewal, given the quick turnaround of the playoff and fans of both teams who might have exhausted their travel budgets on the first two games, but my bet is that the TV ratings will. These two versions of Penn State and Notre Dame have been closely matched all season, and if the analytics and Vegas (which has the Irish as a 1.5-point favorite as of this writing) are correct, this could be a game for the ages.

Here’s hoping that as soon as it ends (if not sooner), the powers that be from both schools start working to make sure it’s only the first of many.