Some rivalries are defined by back-and-forth drama. This one is defined by a century of one team’s boot on the other’s neck — and somehow, that’s exactly what makes it fascinating.
Penn State and West Virginia have met 61 times on the football field since 1904, and the Nittany Lions lead the all-time series a staggering 50-9-2. Only Pitt and Syracuse have faced Penn State more often. And yet, for all that lopsidedness, this matchup ran uninterrupted for 46 straight seasons, produced one of the great upsets of the Joe Paterno era, and features a trophy that Penn State literally lost. It’s a rivalry with everything except parity.
A Brutal Beginning
The series could not have started worse for the Mountaineers. West Virginia made five trips to State College between 1904 and 1909 and got shut out every single time. They didn’t score a point against Penn State until a 13-13 tie at Yankee Stadium in 1923, and didn’t win until 1925, when the series finally came to Morgantown.
For decades, this was part of a bigger regional fight. Starting in 1904, Penn State, West Virginia, and Pitt formed a “tri-state Big Three,” playing an annual round-robin for regional supremacy. In 1951 the Old Ironsides Trophy was introduced for the three-team champion — and here’s the kicker: after West Virginia won it outright in 1984, Penn State couldn’t find the trophy. It was simply gone. The three-way rivalry dissolved into separate matchups, and the hardware has never resurfaced.
The Streak
From 1959 to 1983, Penn State won 25 consecutive games in the series — a quarter century without a Mountaineer victory. The run swallowed whole eras of West Virginia football, including the college careers of standout quarterbacks like Oliver Luck and Jeff Hostetler (a Penn State transfer, adding insult to injury). Joe Paterno took over in Happy Valley in 1967 and simply kept the machine rolling.
West Virginia finally broke through in 1984 with a 17-14 upset in Morgantown, its first win in the series since 1955. But the truly historic moment came in 1988: behind quarterback Major Harris, the Mountaineers hammered Penn State 51-30 on the way to an undefeated regular season. To this day, that West Virginia team is the only opponent ever to hang more than 50 points on a Paterno-coached squad.
Penn State answered the way it always has — by winning the next four — before conference realignment killed the series. When the Nittany Lions joined the Big Ten and West Virginia joined the Big East, the annual meeting ended after the 1992 game.
The Reunion — and What’s Next
Thirty-one years later, the schools finally ran it back with a home-and-home in 2023 and 2024. The results were painfully on-brand: Penn State won 38-15 in State College, then 34-12 in Morgantown, stretching its current win streak to six games dating back to 1989.
There’s no next meeting on the books, and that’s a shame. These are two passionate fan bases separated by a few hours of Appalachian highway, with 120 years of shared history and one of college football’s great unresolved storylines: West Virginia is still chasing its first win in this series in over four decades. A rivalry doesn’t need to be even to be worth playing — it just needs stakes, history, and a fan base with a grudge. This one has all three, plus a missing trophy somebody should really go find.
All-time series: Penn State leads 50-9-2 • Longest streak: Penn State, 25 (1959-1983) • Current streak: Penn State, 6 • Last meeting: August 31, 2024 (Penn State 34, West Virginia 12) • Next meeting: TBA
