The UCF Knights and the Penn State Nittany Lions have scheduled a 2013-14 home-and-home football series, the Orlando Sentinel has reported.
UCF will travel to face Penn State at Beaver Stadium on Sept. 14, 2013. The Knights will then host the Nittany Lions at Bright House Networks Stadium in Orlando on a date to be announced in 2014.
The 2013 game will be the third overall meeting between the schools. Penn State won both previous meetings in 2002 (27-24) and 2004 (37-13), but the victories were vacated due to NCAA sanctions.
In order to add the series with Penn State, UCF has dropped previously scheduled home games against Bethune-Cookman in 2013 and Jacksonville State in 2014.
UCF’s 2013 non-conference schedule also includes home games against Akron (Aug. 29) and South Carolina (Sept. 28) and a trip to Florida International (Sept. 7). In their first season in the Big East, the Knights will host Connecticut, Houston, Rutgers, and USF and travel to Louisville, Memphis, SMU, and Temple.
Penn State was scheduled to host Virginia on Sept. 14, 2013, so that game will obviously be moved to a different date or season. The Nittany Lions traveled to Virginia last season in the first game of the home-and-home series, so it’s not likely that the game will be canceled unless the Cavaliers buy out the contract.
The series with UCF tentatively completes Penn State’s non-conference schedule in 2014. The three other games currently on the schedule are home contests vs. Temple, Akron, and UMass.
Update (2/6/13)
The series has been officially announced by Penn State and UCF. The first game will be played at Penn State on Sept. 14, 2013. The second game will be played at UCF, possibly in the 2014 or 2015 seasons.
“We are excited to have UCF returning to the Penn State schedule,” said PSU director of athletics Dave Joyner. “We’re pleased that we can bring Bill O’Brien and (UCF coach) George O’Leary, one of his mentors, together on the playing field this fall. We are in discussions with Virginia about finding a date to play in Beaver Stadium.”
“It will be a great honor to play against UCF and Coach O’Leary,” Penn State Coach Bill O’Brien stated. “UCF is a good football team. Coach O’Leary has done a fantastic job at UCF and obviously he has meant a lot to my career. This will be a great game for our fans and I’m really looking forward to it.”
“We are very excited about this home-and-home series with Penn State,” UCF Vice President and Director of Athletics Todd Stansbury said. “It is our goal to put together a schedule that will be exciting and entertaining for UCF fans. Traveling to State College in 2013 will be a memorable experience, and we are certainly looking forward to hosting the Nittany Lions at Bright House Networks Stadium in the near future.”
Football Schedules