Before Penn State beat USC, this Nittany Lions fan helped lead the Trojans onto the field — in full PSU attire

Jordan Mott grew up in Santa Clara, Calif., but as a fourth-generation Nittany Lion with roots in New Jersey, it was a foregone conclusion before he was even born that he’d bleed blue and white.

With Mott living in the Bay Area, any trip to see Penn State play football used to mean a trip all the way out to State College to see the Nittany Lions at home at Beaver Stadium. But with the Big Ten expanding to the West Coast, suddenly conference road trips were much more doable. So Mott, who graduated from Penn State in 2013, and his wife made the trip down to Los Angeles to see Penn State take on USC for the first time as conference opponents.

A few days before the game, Mott received a marketing email from USC advertising game-day experiences, including the ability to pay extra to run out onto the field with the USC football team. Immediately he thought it would be hilarious to run out on the field dressed in Penn State attire, but his friends and family weren’t sure whether that would be an option.

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“Common consensus among everyone was like, there’s absolutely no way that they’re going to let you run out of the tunnel with their football team dressed in all Penn State stuff,” Mott told The Inquirer. “Everyone’s like, ‘Oh no, you need to buy a USC shirt or something like that, and make it so that you can rip it off when you’re running onto the field.’

“I was like, not a day in my life am I going to wear USC attire, so we’re going to see how this goes, approaching it in Penn State attire. But both my wife and I, we 1,000 percent went into it with the idea that, OK, this is a great joke. This is funny, but there’s absolutely no way that they are going to actually let this happen once you show up in Penn State stuff.”

Despite everyone’s concerns, Mott had found the perfect loophole — there was nothing explicitly stating he couldn’t wear opposing gear — and he had no issues taking advantage of the experience in his Penn State garb.

Once he arrived on the field, Mott learned he was the first opposing fan ever to sign up for the experience — and he’s also the last, thanks to a new rule change on the USC website as of Tuesday that now restricts fans from wearing anything but USC gear on the field. But, according to Mott, the staff at USC was welcoming despite them rooting for the opposing team, and the USC fans who’d signed up for the experience thought it was “hilarious.”

“They’re like, ‘That’s fine, you can do that, we’ll take your money as a university,’” Mott said. “We didn’t have any negative instances with anyone. You could tell the look on some of the players’ faces when there was some Penn State fans standing on the wall in their tent in the tunnel, they looked a little surprised. I remember telling my wife, I was like, I think these people want to punch us, and I do not want to get punched by these guys. But I even took the time on Sunday to email their director of marketing and just say thanks for your guys’ hospitality. It was an incredible experience.”

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Mott also got to watch Penn State warmups from the sideline for about 45 minutes before heading back into the tunnel to follow the Trojans out during introductions.

After Penn State’s comeback win in overtime, Mott posted the video to Instagram, where it quickly blew up on social media with fans applauding him for trolling the team. He even received a FaceTime call from coach James Franklin on Wednesday, celebrating his passion for Penn State and creativity.

“It was almost like you were leading us out,” Franklin said.

The amount of attention surprised Mott, who’d paid for the experience for fun for himself and his friends and family. He said it was worth every penny.

“It was pretty exhilarating,” Mott said. “A lot of people are asking me, ‘Did you hear Penn State fans? Did you get booed?’ Honestly, I don’t entirely remember the whole thing, or what was taking place, with fans yelling or whatnot. It was an incredible experience to be able to run out onto the Coliseum field in front of that many people. And I mean, yeah, we’re running out with the USC team, but Penn State’s right behind us, which from that video, you could tell that I was super hyped.

“In my opinion, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”