On Jan 1, 2022, Penn State will travel to Tampa, Florida to play in the Outback Bowl for the fifth time in program history.
The Nittany Lions, once New Year’s Day comes around, will be tied for the fifth-most Outback Bowl appearances of any school, tied with South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Auburn and Wisconsin.
Penn State is 3-1 all-time in the Outback Bowl, with their last appearance happening nearly 11 years ago on January 1, 2011, which was their only loss as well, a 37-24 defeat at the hands of Florida.
Their first appearance in the bowl was back in 1996, the first time the bowl’s sponsor switched to Outback Steakhouse and they went on to blow out then No. 16 Auburn, 43-14.
There are several things of note for this game, the first being that this is the first Outback Bowl that head coach James Franklin has been to.
In his head coaching career in Happy Valley, Franklin is 3-3 in bowl games, having won the team’s most recent bowl game appearance, a 53-39 win in the 2019 Cotton Bowl against Memphis.
When looking back at Penn State’s bowl history, there seems to be a weird correlation between Orlando and Tampa with bowl games.
The previous four times the Nittany Lions have been to the Outback Bowl, they’ve been to the Capital One/Citrus Bowl in Orlando within the last two bowl games before going to Tampa.
Funny enough, Penn State was in the Citrus Bowl two bowl games ago, so the strange narrative still exists.
In Penn State’s Outback Bowl history, they have scored an average of 28.3 PPG while allowing just 18.8 PPG to opponents in those four games.
Right now, the Nittany Lions are a 2.5 point favorite coming into the game according to Bet MGM and are looking to tie South Carolina’s current record of four Outback Bowl victories on New Year’s Day.
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