Uh, in the 70's and 80's Penn State regularly played Pitt, which was a powerhouse at the time, and Notre Dame.
In the 90's, Penn State started playing Ohio State and Michigan annually, once they joined the Big Ten.
Per Stassen, Penn State's all time record against Pitt is 52-43-4 or .545
Penn State's all time record against Pitt is 52-43-4 or .545 so that sounds like a reasonably even series. For comparison, Michigan is 58-52-6 or .526 against Ohio State.
The thing is that Pitt's wins in the series seem to have come in bunches. From 1913-1938 Pitt just dominated the series, going 20-1-2 and up through about 1965 Pitt was still around 50/50 so in total Pitt went 32-15-3 from 1913-1965.
Medina's breakdown of the PSU/Pitt series:
- 11-3 Penn State dominated early, from 1896-1912
- 1-20-2 Penn State got dominated pre-WWII from 1913-1938
- 14-12-1 Series pretty even from a little before WWII through the mid 60's, 1939-1965
- 12-1 Penn State dominated at a time that roughly corresponds to the Ten Year War between Woody and Bo, 1966-1978
- 4-5-1 Series pretty even through roughly the 80's, 1979-1988
- 10-2 Penn State has dominated since just before joining the Big11Ten, 1989-2019
- 52-43-4 overall
While the series is fairly even overall that is only because Pitt absolutely dominated 80+ years ago. Within the living memory of basically anyone, the only time that PSU wasn't just flat dominating this series was a brief competitive interlude from 1979-1988.
The bottom line is that Pitt is simply NOT a helmet. In
@OrangeAfroMan 's comparison above all of those helmets have been playing another helmet (or near helmet, nearer than Pitt) every year for decades and were doing so long before PSU joined the Big11Ten. Pitt simply doesn't fit that description. Here are all of the "Helmets" and "near-helmets" that PSU has played at least 10 times:
- 36 vs tOSU, 14-22 from 1912-2020, eight before joining the league
- 24 vs Michigan, 10-14 from 1993-2020
- 19 vs Notre Dame, 9-9-1 from 1913-2007
- 17 vs Nebraska, 8-9 from 1920-2017
- 15 vs Alabama, 5-10 from 1959-2011
- 13 vs Miami, FL, 7-6 from 1961-2001
- 10 vs USC, 4-6 from 1922-2016
Also played a lot of games against Bama and Miami. Some with Nebraska, and tUSC.
PSU has also played UW 19 times, and holds a 10-9 advantage in the series.
PSU has nothing to be ashamed of here.
I'm not, and I don't think that OAM was arguing that PSU had something to be ashamed of. His point (I think) and mine (I know) is that those rivalry series between helmets like OU/UNL, ND/USC, tOSU/M, etc kept both teams "in the news" even when they weren't all that great. PSU really didn't have a similar thing until they started playing tOSU every year (and Michigan most years) starting in 1993.