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Wyoming Valley Conference gets new basketball coaches

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<p>Penn State managed to finish in the top 12. But it wasn&#8217;t enough to claim one of the 12 spots in the New Year&#8217;s Six bowls.</p><p>The Nittany Lions will be headed to the Citrus Bowl to take on Kentucky on Jan. 1 in Orlando after falling just one spot short of the top tier of games.</p><p>Finishing at No. 12 in the final top 25 released by the College Football Playoff committee on Sunday, the Lions were the highest-ranked team to miss the New Year&#8217;s Six thanks to a contractual obligation of the Sugar Bowl. Because Big 12 champion Oklahoma made the Playoff, the Sugar had to take the conference runner-up &#8212; No. 15 Texas &#8212; as a replacement, taking away an at-large bid that otherwise would have gone to the Lions.</p><p>Penn State will have to settle for a chance to hit double digits in wins for the third straight season, something the program hasn&#8217;t done since 1980-82.</p><p>&#8220;When you can do something that&#8217;s never been done at Penn State before in the Big Ten era, that&#8217;s a pretty strong statement,&#8221; said Lions coach James Franklin, who was in New Jersey on a recruiting trip when the game was announced. &#8220;We&#8217;ve played some pretty good football here for a long time. It&#8217;s something our senior class can be really proud of.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s not a whole lot of teams in the country who have been able to do what we&#8217;ve been able to do over the past few years.&#8221;</p><p class="p-text">The Lions narrowly missed out on continuing another streak, falling short of a third straight New Year&#8217;s Six bowl bid.</p><p>Had Georgia held on to beat Alabama on Saturday, that almost certainly would have put the Bulldogs in the Playoff ahead of Oklahoma, which would have sent the Sooners to the Sugar Bowl and put Penn State into the Peach Bowl against either No. 10 Florida or No. 11 LSU.</p><p>Instead, the Lions will face another SEC squad in No. 14 Kentucky, which matched Penn State&#8217;s 9-3 record in the regular season.</p><p>It will be Penn State&#8217;s first matchup against the Wildcats in exactly two decades. The Lions won 26-14 in the Outback Bowl at the end of the 1998 season, stifling Hal Mumme&#8217;s potent Air Raid offense led by quarterback Tim Couch, who would be drafted No. 1 overall just a few months later. The impressive defensive showing in the victory set up Penn State as a national title contender headed into the 1999 season.</p><p>The Lions lead the all-time series with Kentucky 3-2.</p><p>While fans may look down on the Wildcats because of their lack of historical success &#8212; their nine wins are the most for the program in 34 years &#8212; there&#8217;s evidence that Kentucky will be a tough matchup.</p><p>Look no further than the Wildcats&#8217; decisive 28-7 win over Mississippi State back in September. The Bulldogs and Lions essentially run the same schemes on both sides of the ball with two former top Penn State assistants &#8212; Joe Moorhead and Bob Shoop &#8212; in charge as head coach and defensive coordinator,respectively.</p><p>Franklin, however, has had plenty of success against Kentucky himself. The Lions coach beat the Wildcats all three years he was the boss at Vanderbilt, winning by a combined score of 100-14. The most recent win came in 2013, the first year that current coach Mark Stoops, brother of former Oklahoma coach Bob, took over in Lexington.</p><p>Stoops has gradually built Kentucky up from two wins to five to seven to this year&#8217;s high-water mark, which included a landmark 27-16 victory over Florida that ended a notorious skid of 31 straight losses to the Gators.</p><p>&#8220;Obviously, I&#8217;ve been a head coach in the SEC and am very familiar with this conference and what (Stoops) has been able to do in a historic season for Kentucky,&#8221; Franklin said. &#8220;So I think it&#8217;s going to be a great game, I think it&#8217;s going to be a tremendous challenge and a great opportunity.&#8221;</p><p>The Wildcats are led by a pair of stars, one on each side of the ball.</p><p>Running back Benny Snell was a semifinalist for both the Maxwell (national player of the year) and Doak Walker (top running back) awards, rushing for 1,305 yards and 14 touchdowns. Though he grew up just outside of Columbus, he didn&#8217;t have an offer from Ohio State or any Power Five programs other than Kentucky and Iowa.</p><p>The real headliner, though, is senior edge rusher Josh Allen, a potential top-10 overall draft pick in April.</p><p>An outside linebacker in Kentucky&#8217;s base 3-4 scheme, the 6-foot-5, 260-pounder was one of the country&#8217;s top defenders this year, leading the SEC with 14 sacks (second nationally) and five forced fumbles (tied for first nationally).</p><p>On top of his 84 total tackles, he also had an SEC-best 18.5 tackles for loss. He was the only defensive player named as a finalist for the Walter Camp Player of the Year award.</p><p>Allen got even less attention on the recruiting trail than Snell. A two-star prospect from Montclair, N.J., Allen didn&#8217;t even have an offer from Rutgers.</p><p>This will be the first Citrus Bowl appearance for Kentucky and the sixth for the Lions, who last played there at the end of the 2009 season when it was called the Capital One Bowl.</p><p>Penn State is 2-3 all-time in the game, beating LSU in that most recent trip and Tennessee in the 1993 season. The Lions lost to Clemson, Florida and Auburn in the 1987, 1997 and 2002 seasons, respectively.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">James Franklin, Trace McSorley and the Nittany Lions will close out the 2018 season in Orlando, where they take on Kentucky in the Citrus Bowl on New Year&#8217;s Day. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/web1_AP18329016576510-5.jpg</photo0><caption0>James Franklin, Trace McSorley and the Nittany Lions will close out the 2018 season in Orlando, where they take on Kentucky in the Citrus Bowl on New Year&#8217;s Day. </caption0><photoCredit0>Chris Knight | AP photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Derek Levarse</p><p>dlevarse@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>CITRUS BOWL</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>No. 12 Penn State vs. No. 14 Kentucky</strong></p><p style="text-align: center;">1 p.m., Jan. 1, ABC</p><p style="text-align: center;">Camping World Stadium, Orlando, Fla.</p></factboxMeta></div>

Penn State headed to Orlando to face Kentucky in Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1