1963 Penn State Nittany Lions football team

The 1963 Penn State Nittany Lions football team represented Pennsylvania State University in the 1963 NCAA University Division football season. Led by fourteenth-year head coach Rip Engle, the Nittany Lions were 7–3 and were 16th in the final coaches' poll. Home games were played on campus at Beaver Stadium in University Park; Penn State was independent in football until 1993.

The Nittany Lions were led on the field in 1963 by fifth-year senior quarterback Pete Liske,^[1][2] who had been selected in the NFL and AFL drafts the previous December and went on to play a dozen seasons in pro football. The regular season finale against rival Pittsburgh was postponed two weeks following the assassination of President Kennedy.^[3][4][5]

Although scoring was off in the 1963 season, the team's defense, headed by 230-pound middle guard (nose tackle in a five man line) Glenn Ressler,^[6] was particularly stout, giving up just 92 points in the first 9 games of the season. The Nittany Lions came within a single point of an upset victory over Pitt in the season finale.

Date	Opponent	Rank	Site	Result	Attendance	Source
September 21	at Oregon		Multnomah Stadium Portland, OR	W 17–7	30,355	[1][2]
September 28	UCLA		Beaver Stadium University Park, PA	W 17–14	34,800	[7][8]
October 5	Rice		Beaver Stadium University Park, PA	W 28–7	38,200	[9]
October 12	Army	No. 9	Beaver Stadium University Park, PA	L 7–10	48,850	[10]
October 19	at Syracuse		Archbold Stadium Syracuse, NY (rivalry)	L 0–9	39,687	[11]
October 26	West Virginia		Beaver Stadium University Park, PA (rivalry)	W 20–9	45,750	[12]
November 2	at Maryland		Byrd Stadium College Park, MD (rivalry)	W 17–15	35,500	[13]
November 9	at No. 10 Ohio State		Ohio Stadium Columbus, OH (rivalry)	W 10–7	83,519	[14]
November 16	Holy Cross		Beaver Stadium University Park, PA	W 28–14	24,200	[15]
December 7	at No. 4 Pittsburgh		Pitt Stadium Pittsburgh, PA (rivalry)	L 21–22	52,349	[3][4][5]
Homecoming Rankings from AP Poll released prior to the game