Less than two hours before the Big Ten’s 2024 football matchups were scheduled to be revealed Thursday afternoon, word got out that one of the Big Ten’s two additions for next season, USC, will be on the Penn State schedule next season, and playing in Beaver Stadium.
College Football Insider Brett McMurphy of The Action Network tweeted that, per sources, USC at Penn State is one of the Big Ten matchups that will happen on the 2024 schedule.
Big Ten’s 2024 conference schedule, sources told @ActionNetworkHQ, includes:
Michigan at USC
Ohio State at UCLA
Wisconsin at Michigan
Iowa at USC
UCLA at Michigan
Wisconsin at USC
Nebraska at UCLA
Iowa at Ohio State
USC at Penn State
UCLA at Iowa— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) June 8, 2023
The two schools are traditional college football powers and have some history playing each other, too. The last time the teams met, they produced one of the greatest Rose Bowl games of all time, with USC edging out Penn State, 52-49. USC is 3-0 against Penn State all-time on Rose Bowl games, and many Penn State fans still remember the game on New Year’s Day, 2009, when USC beat Penn State in a 38-24 game that wasn’t as close as the score said.
The most recent regular-season meeting between the two schools took place in the first week of the 2000 season at Giants Stadium. USC won that one, too, 29-5, launching what turned out to be a disastrous 5-7 campaign for Joe Paterno and company.
Despite what recent history suggests, the series has been fairly even overall.
USC leads, 6-4, with Penn State’s last win coming in 1996, also in the Meadowlands. Penn State also bear USC in its undefeated 1994 season and in 1993.
Arguably Penn State’s most notable win over USC took place in the Fiesta Bowl New Year’s Day, 1982. Penn State held Heisman Trophy-winning and and future NFL Hall of Fame RB Marcus Allen to 85 yards on 30 carries and forced him to fumble twice in a 26-10 win.
The world will know Penn State’s full list of Big Ten opponents for next year soon, and will find out the exact date and scheduled kickoff time later on. But no matter who else comes to Beaver Stadium next season, the USC game will be a big one, and some fans will surely call for it to be next year’s White Out game.
