1998 Florida Citrus Bowl

Penn State was ranked #1 for the first three weeks of the season and were 7–0 before a loss to eventual national champion Michigan. They won two of their last three games but ultimately finished tied for second in the Big Ten Conference. The defending national champion Gators were ranked #1 for three weeks in the season as well, though two losses to LSU and Georgia within two weeks of each other knocked Florida out of the contention for the Southeastern Conference title, though they finished the regular season in the AP top 10 for the fifth straight year. This was both Florida and Penn State's third appearance.

Game summary

Noah Brindise gave Florida a 7–0 lead on a touchdown sneak after an 80-yard drive that took only 4:12 and had Fred Taylor contribute 47 yards of rushing. While trying to respond, Mike McQueary's pass was intercepted by Fred Weary and returned to the 35. Doug Johnson followed with a touchdown pass to Jacquez Green to make it 14–0 a few plays later. Travis Forney made it 14–3 after a field goal set up by a Johnson interception. Midway through the third quarter, Forney made it 14–6 on his second kick. After Johnson's injury to his shoulder, Jesse Palmer stepped in as quarterback and led Florida to an early fourth quarter touchdown pass to Green to make the final score 21–6 as Penn State was stifled by the defense of Florida. McQueary went 10 of 32 for 92 yards and 3 interceptions while Penn State has only one yard of rushing in the first half en route to only 47 the whole day. Fred Taylor ended his career at Florida with the most amount of rushing yards in Citrus Bowl history, rushing for 234 yards on 43 carries.^[1]^[2]

Aftermath

Florida has returned to the Citrus Bowl in 2000, 2008 and 2016, while Penn State did in 2003 and 2010.

Statistics

Statistics	Florida	Penn State
First Downs	23	9
Yards Rushing	254	47
Yards Passing	143	92
Total Yards	397	139
Possession Time	35:07	24:53
Fumbles-Lost	1-1	0-0
Interceptions	2	3
Penalties-Yards	5-45	1-5

References

↑ http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/02/sports/college-football-citrus-bowl-taylor-s-record-runs-lift-florida.html
↑ "1998 Florida Citrus Bowl" (PDF). Florida Gators Football Media Guide. Florida Gators Athletics. p. 134. Retrieved January 18, 2015.

1997–98 NCAA football bowl game season

Las Vegas (Dec. 20) Aloha (Dec. 25) Motor City (Dec. 26) Insight.com (Dec. 27) Independence (Dec. 28) Carquest (Dec. 29) Holiday (Dec. 29) Humanitarian (Dec. 29) Alamo (Dec. 30) Liberty (Dec. 31) Sun (Dec. 31) Outback (Jan. 1) Gator (Jan. 1) Citrus (Jan. 1) Cotton (Jan. 1) Rose (Jan. 1) Peach (Jan. 2)

Bowl Alliance games: Fiesta (Dec. 31) Sugar (Jan. 1) Orange (Jan. 2)

Tangerine / Florida Citrus / Capital One / Citrus Bowl

History & conference tie-ins	History Orlando Citrus Bowl Stadium Broadcasters Big Ten Conference Southeastern Conference

Games	1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1958 1960 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2016

Notes	There was a Citrus Bowl in January and December in 1958, 1960 and 2016. There was no Citrus Bowl in 1959.

Florida Gators bowl games

Pound sign (#) denotes national championship game.

Penn State Nittany Lions bowl games

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/21/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.