State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, sits about 25 miles from Sun Devil Stadium, the original home of the Fiesta Bowl and the site of perhaps the greatest triumph in Penn State football history.
It’s fitting that, so close to where the Nittany Lions claimed their last national championship, Penn State took one of its most significant steps toward the college football mountaintop in the 38 years since the 1986 team shocked the Miami Hurricanes in Tempe.
In the same way that the location in which they were played isn’t exactly the same, the Nittany Lions’ 31-14 win in the December 2024 version of the Fiesta Bowl isn’t a direct comparison to the 14-10 victory over Miami in the game’s January 1987 installment.
The latter sealed the national championship, the second of Penn State’s two claimed titles, both won during the 1980s. Tuesday’s win was a step in a longer process, inching the Nittany Lions two games away from the crown.
But in a way, earning a spot in the gridiron Final Four is the closest any Penn State team has come to the championship since Shane Conlan and Co. shut down a boisterous Miami squad that arrived in Arizona wearing military fatigues.
Certainly, some reading the preceding statement are already pounding out a response: What about 1994? And it’s a valid point.
Penn State’s 1994 squad did indeed run the table, capping a 12-0 season with a 38-20 romp against Oregon in that year’s Rose Bowl. According to some outlets, Kerry Collins, Ki-Jana Carter, and the rest of that Nittany Lions squad were national champions.
However, none of the sources bestowing such a designation on Penn State were enough for the program to claim a title for 1994. Nebraska’s 13-0 finish, with wins over the end-of-season Associated Press Poll’s No. 3 (Colorado) and No. 6 (Miami) teams, trumped Penn State’s resume.
The Nittany Lions had no real control over their championship fate, as it was left up to pollsters. The situation’s bitter irony is that had Penn State joined the fledgling Big East before accepting its invite to the Big Ten Conference in 1990, a league matchup with Miami and a hypothetical Orange Bowl showdown with Nebraska would have allowed the Nittany Lions to settle this dispute on the field.
Given that this Penn State team controls its title destiny, advancing to the semifinals of the College Football Playoff is indeed the closest Penn State has come since the 1987 Fiesta Bowl.
There have been plenty of seasons in the evolution of how college football champions are determined that can be pointed to as a definite turning point. The 1990s alone saw the split championships between Colorado and Georgia Tech, shrouded in controversy thanks to CU’s “Fifth Down” win over Missouri in October 1990; Miami and Washington running roughshod over all comers in 1991 but not facing off; and the Michigan-Nebraska shared crown in the final year before the introduction of the Bowl Championship Series.
One could contend that Penn State, not even sniffing a split championship in 1994—Nebraska garnered five times as many first-place votes in the final AP Poll—may have provided the strongest argument for a playoff system at the time.
Yet, while Penn State was among the programs most at the forefront of public sentiment pushing for changes to the championship process, the Nittany Lions never factored into the BCS title picture. During the decade of the four-team College Football Playoff, James Franklin-coached squads would have perhaps been the greatest beneficiaries of a slightly expanded field.
It’s hard not to consider the 2016 Penn State team that won the Big Ten, beat Ohio State head-to-head, was passed over for the Playoff in favor of the Buckeyes, before laying an egg in that season’s Fiesta Bowl, and not recognize that one flawed system was exchanged for another.
But now, with the chance in front of them, the Nittany Lions are running with it. And that’s not all Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton ran with, going for 134 and 87 yards against Boise State.
Drew Allar throwing touchdowns on almost a quarter of his pass completions—three scores out of 13—punctuated an impressive performance from the offense. And while the final score of 31-14 suggests dominance, which has been the theme of the inaugural 12-team Playoff, the Fiesta Bowl was anything but another one-sided rout.
Boise State, which enjoyed its own program highs in the Phoenix-area bowl game, seemed poised for more Fiesta magic when it drove deep into Penn State’s territory twice in the second half. The Nittany Lions’ defense responded both times, with Defensive MVP Zakee Wheatley’s interception of Maddux Madson in the end zone and Amin Vanover’s red-zone sack on the Broncos’ next possession.
Like the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, the opposition arrived in special garb: Boise State didn’t don fatigues like the ‘86 Hurricanes but instead wore shirts that read “Count Us Out.” And, like Penn State did in the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, the Nittany Lions rose to the occasion.
“We were not counting those guys out,” Franklin said emphatically in his postgame press conference. “They had our attention, and I think that showed up today…When things don’t go well, [Penn State’s players] don’t panic.”
Next up for the Nittany Lions is the national semifinal in the Orange Bowl. It isn’t the same Orange Bowl where Nebraska celebrated a national championship that Penn State was denied 30 years ago, but that’s the least of the changes.
The biggest change is that the Nittany Lions now have the opportunity to win a title on the field for the first time since the 1987 Fiesta Bowl.
