Penn State to face Boston College in Pinstripe Bowl
Of The Morning Call |
Yankee Stadium will host Penn State-Boston College in the Dec. 27 Pinstripe Bowl. (Jeff Zelevansky, Getty Images)
Penn State opened the season on a rugby field in Dublin and will close it on a baseball field in the Bronx.
"How cool is this?" coach James Franklin said Sunday night. "Our guys get to spend a week in Ireland and a week in New York City in the same year."
Penn State returns to the college football postseason at Yankee Stadium, where it will face Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl. The game is scheduled for Dec. 27.
Penn State will play in its first bowl game since 2011. The NCAA restored Penn State's bowl-eligibility in September, ending the four-year bowl ban that was part of the 2012 sanctions.
The team's season-opener against Central Florida in Dublin was scheduled as a bowl substitute. Now, Franklin said, those East Coast fans who traveled to Ireland get a break on their bowl-game expenses.
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"It worked out well," Franklin said. "For families that had to sacrifice to save the money to go to Ireland to support the team, this is a bowl, from a location standpoint, where they can continue to support the team."
Penn State began postseason practice this weekend. Franklin, who was in Pittsburgh on Sunday night recruiting, said that the team's initial practices will focus on long-term development of younger players. Penn State will conduct the majority of its pre-bowl practices in State College.
"You have to be careful, because the extra time can be a negative," Franklin said. "You might try to get too cute and kind of get away from who you are. We're not going to spend the entire time working on Boston College. The first half of bowl practices will be program-development practices, like spring ball."
The Nittany Lions (6-6) will face Boston College for the first time since 2004. The Eagles have won the last three games of the series. Penn State was 19-1 before that.
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Boston College, coached by Steve Addazio, finished 7-5. The Eagles lost 20-17 to Florida State on a last-second field goal in November.
Boston College employs a run-first offense, with rushing yards accounting for 66 percent of the team's total offense. The Eagles rank 14th nationally in rushing, averaging 252 yards per game, while Penn State's defense is No. 1 against the run (84.8 per game).
Freshman quarterback Tyler Murphy is Boston College's top rusher, with 1.079 yards and 10 touchdowns this season. Murphy set a new single-season ACC rushing record by a quarterback and broke Boston College's career record in one season.
Penn State leads the series against Boston College 19-4. The Eagles won the last three games of the series, in 1992, 2003 and 2004. The teams played annually from 1981-92.
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This is the first of the Pinstripe Bowl's eight-year agreement with the Big Ten Conference. The bowl intends to host eight different conference teams during the contract.
The Nittany Lions went 0-2-1 at the old Yankee Stadium. They tied West Virginia 13-13 in 1923, lost to Georgia Tech 16-7 in 1925 and fell to NYU 7-0 in 1929.
"There is no better place to experience an event than Yankee Stadium and no better place to celebrate a bowl appearance during the holiday season than New York City," Mark Holtzman, executive director of the Pinstripe Bowl, said in a statement. "We are excited to be able to share this wonderful experience with our partners in the Big Ten and ACC for years to come."
The game could challenge Yankee Stadium attendance records for college football. The two largest football crowds at the current Yankee Stadium are 54,251 (for Notre Dame-Army in 2010) and 48,256 (for this year's Lehigh-Lafayette game).
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The Big Ten announced in September that Penn State will not receive its share of conference bowl revenue, which is being distributed to organizations that fight child sexual abuse. As all Big Ten teams do, Penn State will receive a stipend to help cover expenses.
PINSTRIPE BOWL
PENN STATE (6-6) VS. BOSTON COLLEGE (7-5)
WHEN: 4:30 p.m., Dec. 27.
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WHERE: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, N.Y.
TV: ESPN.
TICKETS: Available through Ticketmaster.
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