Imagine a world in which Joe Paterno joined the USC football coaching staff in 1960 and spent a very lengthy career in Los Angeles, not Happy Valley. John McKay, who joined USC as an assistant in 1959, might never have come to the Trojans. Penn State might never have become a dynastic power in the 1970s and 1980s. So much of college football history would be different.
The Trojans and Nittany Lions didn’t meet in big bowl games in the 1970s because Penn State was an independent. Had PSU been in the Big Ten, it would have been a very different story. USC and Penn State were both prominent and hugely successful in the 1970s, but their paths didn’t cross in January.
There was a moment in 1956 when Penn State coach Rip Engle, Joe Paterno’s predecessor, was being courted by USC to fill the Trojans’ head coaching opening. Reporting from the year 1969, picked up by more recent reporters, indicates that Paterno was strongly interested in coming to USC.
A Pennsylvania paper called the Sunday Patriot-News quoted Engle as saying the following about Paterno:
“I couldn’t profit much by a change but perhaps my staff could. I told them about the offer and said we would vote on it. Joe was so gung ho about going he stood up and gave us a pep talk about all the advantages.”
“He was single then, and California appealed to him. Maybe he wanted to go to Hollywood. We voted seven to one in favor of staying. Joe was the one.”
It gives one pause.
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