STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — It was like another version of training camp for Penn State, with padded practices twice a day and scrimmages near the bowl site in Tampa. Two weeks before any bowl game, Joe Paterno’s team went through the same routine.

“By the time we got around to the game, we’d been in Florida so long, and everybody gets tired of being there, tired of hitting on one another and ready to play your opponent and get back home,” former Nittany Lions quarterback Wally Richardson said.

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Spending an extra week at the bowl site was Paterno’s way of eliminating distractions and also getting a jump-start on the next season. Coming off a 12-0 record during the 1994 season, Penn State had expected to compete for a national title the following year but instead was a three-loss team ranked No. 15 headed to the Outback Bowl.

The matchup with No. 16 Auburn helped ease some of that pain. Paterno’s team was focused on stopping the one thing that always came to mind when a Big Ten team played an SEC squad: speed.

“They ran kind of a hurry-up offense, and it was one of the first times I ever remember them telling us we may not huddle, which was absolutely like an amazing thought in 1995 to not have everyone stand in the huddle for 30 seconds,” former Penn State defensive tackle Brandon Noble said. “You were going to bludgeon them into submission, or they were going to run by you. That was the matchup.”

The 1996 Outback Bowl at Tampa Stadium, which was remembered more for the rain, wind and puddling on the field than the game itself, was the first time Penn State and Auburn played. Penn State’s 40 unanswered points en route to a 43-14 win made the muddy game all the more memorable for the Nittany Lions. Playing a team they didn’t know much about until they were handed the scouting report also added to the mystique.

The 1995 Tigers were led by quarterback Patrick Nix, whose son Bo Nix will walk into Beaver Stadium Saturday night for the first regular-season meeting between Penn State and Auburn, now ranked No. 10 and No. 22, respectively. The series is split 1-1, thanks to Auburn’s 13-9 win in the 2003 Capital One Bowl. Expect many from that ’96 Outback Bowl to be glued to their TVs or inside Beaver Stadium. The players won’t be in massive shoulder pads and neck rolls this time around.

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“There was a lot of hype around their team,” said Jeff Hartings, Penn State’s All-America offensive lineman who would become a first-round pick in the 1996 NFL Draft. “I don’t think it stopped raining the entire game, and we took a lot of pride in the fact that the weather didn’t affect us. … There was a huge amount of satisfaction for me ending my career with that kind of victory.”

Richardson, the director of Penn State football’s letterman’s club, remembers the Penn State offense going into the Outback Bowl being told it had to get off to a quick start. The Auburn defense was talented and fast. The day before the game, the downpour started, and SEC speed would be negated by Big Ten weather conditions.

“It’s the most rain I’ve ever seen or played in in my entire life,” said Keith Conlin, Penn State’s starting left tackle in 1995. “We’d be on the bench, and it was the old Sombrero, the old Tampa Stadium, and the water was just piling up and rolling down the aisles and coming on the field. You would not believe how much water was coming on the field from the stands. It was just crazy.”

Richardson, who is from South Carolina, would have to perform as though he’d been playing in bad weather all his life. His top receiver Bobby Engram, who was also from South Carolina and was playing in his final game at Penn State, would have to do the same. It seemed every time a player was tackled, he’d stand up covered in mud. Penn State’s uniforms looked more brown than white by the end of the opening drive.

“You couldn’t really see the lines on the field,” Richardson said. “You had some puddles out there where the water started to pool a little bit.”

Auburn running back Stephen Davis ripped the Penn State defense for 92 yards in the first quarter, the former top-rated recruit in the country looking unstoppable plowing through the puddles. Davis had been a high school nemesis of sorts for Richardson, having beat Richardson’s team for the state championship in Richardson’s senior year.

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“We’d won 23 games in a row and were undefeated,” Richardson said. “So that was how I ended my high school career, and it was still pretty fresh in my mind at the time. A lot of my motivation for wanting to beat Auburn was to get a little bit of get-back for them beating us in high school.”

Penn State’s defense changed the trajectory of the game with one hit late in the first quarter from defensive back Ambrose Fletcher on Davis.

“He walloped him and basically knocked him out of the game,” Noble said. Davis came back in but played sparingly, finishing with 119 rushing yards. “Their running game disappeared, and they became one-dimensional. Then, you throw that on top of a monsoon, and now you’re trying to throw the football. Patrick Nix didn’t do terribly, but Wally just did it better.”

Penn State took a 16-7 lead into the half. Inside the locker room with everyone muddy and soaking wet, Penn State receivers coach Kenny Jackson told the offense to “change your pants, change your jerseys, change your thoughts,” Richardson recalled.

“We were able to get dry and become comfortable again during halftime, and that really made a big difference,” Richardson said.

Noble and the defense didn’t have such a luxury.

“Your shoes were just like 20 pounds,” Noble said with a laugh. “You were stuck in those things for the whole game. I remember guys trying to find dry clothes at halftime and you couldn’t.”

Penn State began to pour it on in a 27-point third quarter, as Engram scored on receptions of 9 and 20 yards, and the Nittany Lions looked across at a team that did not appear as though it wanted to be slogging up and down the field much longer. Nix, who was under pressure most of the game, completed 5 of 25 passes, with two interceptions.

Penn State’s talented and experienced offensive line paved the way for Stephen Pitts, who carried the ball 15 times for 118 yards. Richardson had a career day, finishing with 217 yards passing and four touchdowns. Engram was named the game’s MVP.

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“Everything was about speed, speed, speed and there was no speed advantage in that game,” Conlin said. “We just beat ‘em up pretty good.”

After the game, players peeled off their jerseys, pants, helmets and shoulder pads and stuffed it all in equipment bags. The gear was loaded on a truck and driven back to State College.

When players returned to campus later in January, they were reminded of the Outback Bowl for quite a while. The equipment had never been unloaded from the truck, so all the wet gear in those bags froze. It all had to be brought in the locker room to thaw.

“You could smell the locker room like 3 miles away because that’s how bad the whole place stunk,” Conlin said. “They had to power wash everything. It was disgusting.”

(Photo of Wally Richardson: Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images)