This week marks a historic milestone between No. 2 Penn State and No. 19 Michigan.
This is the 25th year the Nittany Lions have clashed with the Wolverines as a Big Ten Conference opponent since joining the league in 1993. It's a series that includes some of the most storied names in all of college football, from Lloyd Carr and Joe Paterno to Tom Brady and Ki-Jana Carter.
MORE: Penn State vs. Michigan: 25 years of big names, bigger games
As Jim Harbaugh and James Franklin prepare to write the next chapter in this series, Sporting News' Bill Bender remembers the history of these two teams, from the perspective of those closest to the programs.
The series is already one of the most interesting in the nation. But it takes on new life when provided commentary by people like Penn State's Steve Jones, Michigan's Jim Brandstatter and New York Times best-selling author John U. Bacon, who knows both programs from years of behind-the-scenes access.
The piece focuses on the biggest games of the series, from the teams' first meeting in 1993, to the 2005 shocker in The Big House to the four-overtime thriller in 2013.
From the article:
Bacon: “We had never seen that before; those two helmets. It felt very much to me like the ’78 game between Notre Dame and Michigan. A rivalry that everybody wanted, two legendary programs that had a reputation for doing it the right way and two programs that were highly successful, too. Why was this not happening? Two Midwestern teams. Why hasn’t this happened before?”
Read Bender's article, Penn State vs. Michigan: 25 years of big games, big names and big catches here.
