It’s game week and that means game notes. While Penn State has yet to release a depth chart for its meeting against Temple, the first release of this season’s game notes have a few good trivia bits. Here are a few stats and figures worth remembering.
- Penn State and Temple have met 43 times with the Nittany Lions owning a 39-3-1 overall record. The 43 meetings rank fifth in the PSU record books.
- The 2015 opener will be the third consecutive away from home for Penn State. It will also be the first time the Lions have opened the season with a true road game since opening at Minnesota in 1994.
- It will be the first time Penn State has opened three consecutive seasons away from Beaver Stadium since the 1971-73 seasons. The Blue and White defeated Navy, 56-3, in Annapolis in 1971, lost to Tennessee, 28-21, in Knoxville in 1972 and defeated Stanford, 20-6, in Palo Alto in 1973.
- The next four season openers (2016, Kent State; 2017, Akron; 2018, Appalachian State; and 2019, Idaho) will all take place in Beaver Stadium.
- The Lions have won their last two openers and 12 out of their last 13.
- Penn State’s longest streaks of winning their season openers are: 12 (1919-30), 11 (1893-1903), 10 (1973-82; 2002-11), 9 (1909-17), 7 (1942-48).
- Temple head coach Matt Rhule played linebacker at Penn State (1994-97) and earned his degree in political science in 1997.
- Penn State cornerbacks coach Terry Smith coached the Temple wide receivers in 2013.
- Penn State defensive coordinator Bob Shoop hired Temple linebackers coach Mike Siravo as his linebackers coach at Columbia while he was the head coach for the Lions. They also worked together at Boston College from 1999-2000.
- Temple defensive line coach Elijah Robinson was a defensive lineman at Penn State from 2004-08 and served as a graduate assistant for the Nittany Lions 2007-11. He was the player development and NFL liaison from 2012-13.
- Several Nittany Lions are wearing new numbers, including Mark Allen (8), Brandon Bell (11), Torrence Brown(19), Gregg Garrity (19), Troy Reeder (42), Javon Turner (28), Kyle Vasey (96) and Daquan Worley (4).
- Christian Hackenberg enters the season ranked third in the NCAA among active players for game-winning drives in the fourth quarter or overtime. .
- The complete list of NCAA game winning drive leaders (Compiled by Navy Sports Information)
1. 6 – Braxton Miller (Ohio State)
6 – Keenan Reynolds (Navy)
3. 5 – Christian Hackenberg (Penn State)
