Penn State-Rutgers football history: Nittany Lions have commanding record vs. Scarlet Knights

Penn State football and coach James Franklin will look to salvage what remains of their 2023 regular season with a game Saturday against Rutgers at Beaver Stadium.

If history is any indication, things will go just fine for the No. 12 Nittany Lions.

There is no team in the Big Ten — not even Maryland, whom Penn State leads 42-3-1 all time — that the Nittany Lions own quite like Rutgers. Though coach Greg Schiano's 6-4 Scarlet Knights team is likely the best team yet of his second stint in Piscataway, New Jersey, he and his players will fight against more than just the team lining up against them on Saturday.

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In a series that dates back to Nov. 9, 1918, two days before the armistice ending World War I was signed, the Nittany Lions have a 31-2 record against Rutgers. In fact, Penn State has lost just once since the series-opening game in 1918 (a 26-3 Rutgers victory).

According to odds from BetMGM, the Nittany Lions are a 20.5-point favorite in the 34th all-time meeting between what are now conference foes. If they manage to avoid an upset, they’ll continue what is already an astonishingly lopsided tradition.

Here’s a look at the history between Penn State and Rutgers, and how the Nittany Lions have compiled such a large advantage:

Penn State vs. Rutgers series history

New Jersey has played an integral role in the historical success of Penn State as a bordering and populous state with a strong pool of high school football talent. Players from the state have helped the Nittany Lions for decades, from Franco Harris to, more recently, Tamba Hali and Mike Gesicki.

As that pipeline was established and fortified, Penn State dominated the flagship university of the state it so aggressively recruited. The Nittany Lions and Rutgers have had a sporadic history, with clusters of consistent matchups mixed with decades of inaction. The two played every year from 1950 to 1955, with Penn State winning all six games.

After a 22-year lull, they met again in 1977, kicking off an 19-year stretch in which they played 17 times. The Nittany Lions went 16-1 in those contests, with the lone loss coming in 1988. That year, a Penn State team that finished 5-6 and gave Joe Paterno his only losing season in his first 34 years at the school, fell to the Scarlet Knights 21-16 at Beaver Stadium. It was the first loss of that season for the Nittany Lions, who were ranked No. 13 in the Coaches Poll at the time of the game.

Beyond that exception, the games between Penn State and Rutgers in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s were one-sided. Only two of the Nittany Lions’ 16 wins during that span were decided by fewer than 10 points, with an average margin of victory of 21.3 points per game.

That run was capped off by 59-34 Penn State win in East Rutherford, New Jersey in 1995, a game in which Paterno and Rutgers coach Doug Graber had a profanity-laced confrontation after the final whistle. Graber was upset with the Nittany Lions for adding on a 43-yard touchdown pass with one minute remaining and with an 18-point lead already in hand.

Penn State record vs. Rutgers as Big Ten members

The series went dormant after that 1995 contest. Nearly 20 full years later, the programs were reunited not by a game contract they agreed to, but the forces of conference realignment, with Rutgers joining the Big Ten for the 2014 season.

The new relationship as conference mates has done little to reverse Penn State’s success: The Nittany Lions are 9-0 against the Scarlet Knights since the latter came aboard as the conference’s eastern-most addition.

The games haven’t been particularly close, either. After a 13-10 victory in 2014 in Piscataway, New Jersey, Penn State has won the past eight meetings by an average of 27 points. It has won the past two matchups by a combined score of 83-10.

Heading into Saturday’s game, Penn State has won 16 in a row against its Big Ten East division foe.

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Connections between Penn State and Rutgers

Links between the Nittany Lions and Scarlet Knights existed well before Rutgers joined the Big Ten.

Schiano was an assistant at Penn State from 1990-95. He has often cited Paterno as a profound influence on his life and coaching career, even saying ahead of his team’s 2021 game in Happy Valley that he is “forever indebted” to the legendary Nittany Lions coach.

Schiano built the Scarlet Knights into a relevant program during his first stint at the school from 2001-11, going to six bowls over a seven-year stretch at one point. Rutgers and Penn State never played during that time (though if they had, it’s quite possible the Scarlet Knights might have more than two wins in the all-time series).

If it were up to Paterno, it wouldn’t have taken Rutgers until 2014 to be welcomed into the Big Ten. In the years after Penn State became a Big Ten member in 1990, Paterno urged the league to consider eastward expansion into some of the country’s largest markets, with Rutgers regularly raised as a possible addition.

“Paterno and I would tell them, `If we can't get Notre Dame, Rutgers should be our first choice,'” former Penn State athletic director Jim Tarman told NJ.com in 2007.

It wouldn’t be until November 2012, almost exactly 10 months after Paterno’s death, that Rutgers’ invitation came.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Penn State-Rutgers football record: Nittany Lions have commanded series