Forgive Drew Allar, Nick Dawkins and everyone else on the current Penn State roster.
Of course, they don’t know much about the 1994 Nittany Lions team that won the school’s first Big Ten football championship and finished 12-0. They weren’t alive yet to see the greatest offense in the history of the school and perhaps college football.
Those Lions averaged 47.0 points, still the most in the Big Ten since 1916, and 520.2 total yards per game, which was a conference record then.
They put teams away early, rolling up massive halftime leads against Minnesota (35-3), Southern Cal (35-0), Iowa (45-7), Ohio State (35-0) and Northwestern (38-3).
They had five first-team All-Americans, all on offense: Kerry Collins, Ki-Jana Carter, Bobby Engram, Jeff Hartings and Kyle Brady.
Beyond the ridiculous numbers and the impressive talent, they had something else.
“To use a phrase by a wise, old coach (the late Joe Paterno), we had moxie,” Collins said Thursday from his home in Tennessee. “I tell people all the time, ‘Yeah, we were talented.’ But nobody cared who got the credit. Nobody cared how it got done. It was just getting it done.”
Collins, the former Wilson High star, and his ’94 teammates will celebrate their 30th anniversary this weekend at Penn State. They will be recognized during Saturday night’s game against Illinois.
The unity they had is hard to find in this day and age of the transfer portal and NIL money when players often put themselves ahead of their teammates for the sake of the almighty dollar.
They relied on that togetherness when they first faced adversity at Michigan.
The Wolverines rallied from a 16-3 halftime deficit and took the lead on two Tyrone Wheatley touchdown runs in the third quarter. The Lions quickly answered with an 86-yard drive and a two-point conversion to tie it.
Then in the fourth quarter, Collins found Engram on third down for a 16-yard TD that was the game-winning play.
“That Michigan game, man,” Collins said. “They replay it every couple of years and I’ll find it. After Wheatley busted off a couple of runs, we immediately responded with an unreal drive. Then the one at the end of the game when we had to have it.
“Those are championship drives.”
Four weeks later, they mounted the greatest drive in school history.
At cold, windy, rainy Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Ill., they fell behind 21-0 in the first quarter. They trailed by 10 points going into the fourth quarter. Their perfect season was in jeopardy.
Fullback Brian Milne scored to pull the Lions within 31-28. A few minutes later, Penn State was backed up at its 4-yard line and going into the wind and rain. Nonetheless, Collins completed 7-of-7 passes to cement his legacy and Milne scored to give the Lions the lead with 57 seconds left. Kim Herring’s end-zone interception sealed the win and the Big Ten title.
“It was obviously an unbelievable win,” Collins said. “It was THE most stressful game I had at Penn State, for sure. It was one of the top two or three in my whole career. It was one of those games where everything was going wrong. We had a fired-up opponent that was really good.
“The good thing is we had enough time left in the game to do what we did. It took everything that we had physically, emotionally and mentally to come back and win.”
Penn State went on to beat Oregon 38-20 in the Rose Bowl and complete the seventh unbeaten and untied season in school history.
Yet the Lions finished No. 2 in the two major polls behind Nebraska, which beat Miami (Fla.) in the Orange Bowl. Because of contractual obligations then, Penn State couldn’t meet the Cornhuskers in a bowl game. There was no Bowl Championship Series and no College Football Playoff then.
Penn State was briefly ranked No. 1 before being dropped to No. 2 after a 63-14 rout of Ohio State and a deceiving 35-29 victory over Indiana.
Those Lions didn’t care. They wore blue caps that said “National Champions 1994” in white lettering right after the Rose Bowl.
Collins had a message for those who never had the chance to watch the best of Penn State’s unbeaten teams.
“We were extremely talented,” he said, “but I would like them to know that the essence of that team was our character, our selflessness and our work ethic. It was our makeup. It was who we were.”
