This month marks the 100th anniversary of the Penn State vs. Rutgers matchup. Back in the heydays of Rutgers football (Did you know college football was born there? No? Not to worry, they’ll remind you at least six times this weekend), the Scarlet Knights took the first game of the series with an emphatic 26-3 win at Old Beaver Field. That game was hardly characteristic of the series.

Since then, the Nittany Lions have won 26 of the last 27 meetings between the two teams and are owners of two different double-digit winning streaks against their adopted little brother, including their current 11-game run. One hundred years and 40 losing seasons have now passed since the first rumblings of “Fuck Penn State,” and Rutgers has mustered only one other win against Penn State. 

A lot more exciting things have happened in that span.

Two World Wars ended.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed two days after Rutgers beat Penn State in the first meeting between the two schools. Another World War came to a close 27 years later. All the Scarlet Knights have done against the Nittany Lions since 1918 is win once in 1988.

Pluto became a planet and then lost its status.

Rutgers has yet to beat Penn State at a time when Pluto’s been recognized as a dwarf planet.

The Red Sox won four World Series — despite an 86-year drought.

In addition to the first Rutgers and Penn State game, 1918 was also the last time the Boston Red Sox won a World Series before the infamous Curse of the Bambino. Following the 1919 season, the team’s owner sold Babe Ruth to the rival New York Yankees for money that he used to produce a play. The Yankees went on to win three titles in the next decade while the Red Sox entered one of the longest championship droughts in baseball history.

Red Sox fans suffered through 86 years of falling just short and victim to fated disappointment. Still, they’ve enjoyed more titles in the last 100 years than Rutgers fans have celebrated wins against Penn State. But if there’s hope for Red Sox (and Cubs) fans, then maybe, there’s also hope for Rutgers fans.

The Yankees also won all 27 of their World Series.

As much as we bag on Rutgers year-round, at least one of the Tristate Area’s baseball teams has something going for it. With 27 World Series, the Yankees have more titles in the last 100 years than Rutgers has points in three years of playing Penn State.

Twenty-seven is the number of losses for Chris Ash in his third season as head coach, though. 

A man stepped on the moon…

Beating Penn State during this century would be one giant leap for the Scarlet Knights.

…12 times.

More men have walked on the moon than times Rutgers has played in a bowl game (10). 

The radio was invented.

The first time Rutgers beat Penn State, the only way to know what was going on in the game as it happened was to be there. A century later, and we spend our Saturdays sitting in comfy armchairs in the friendly confines of heated homes flipping through channels of games all around the country to make sure we don’t even need to see as much as one second of a commercial.

Prohibition started and ended, and 10 other amendments passed.

If you need an APUSH refresher, just know that nearly half of the amendments to the Constitution have been passed in the 100 years Rutgers and Penn State have played. Folks, even Congress has been more productive in the last 100 years than Rutgers.

During that time, alcohol became outlawed and then reinstated, women got the right to vote, and the governor of Delaware’s path to the Oval Office in case all hell breaks loose was formalized. Life on this big blue marble, man.