PISCATAWAY -- After another loss on Saturday night, this one mostly noncompetitive against No. 4 Michigan, Art Sitkowski provided his usual few minutes of better-than-average postgame quotes to reporters.

Then, Penn State came up.

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Saturday at HighPoint.com Stadium will be Sitkowski's first go-around with the Nittany Lions, who are perceived as a major Rutgers rival. To some, Penn State is the rival to the Scarlet Knights. Sitkowski, an Old Bridge native, has apparently heard that noise before.

"They say it's a big rivalry, Penn State versus Rutgers, so we're all fired up and ready to go," Sitkowski said following the 42-7 loss to the Wolverines.

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Yes, Art. People do say that, and those people are wrong.

The basic definition of a rivalry is a competition for superiority in the same field, but be honest with yourself for a moment. A rivalry in sports implies that the teams take turns winning. The matchup is not one-sided, at least not for a prolonged time period. If you're willing to come along with this thinking about rivalries, then how can Rutgers-Penn State be one?

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Penn State leads the all-time series with Rutgers, 26-2, the latter winning in 1918, then again, famously, in State College in 1988. Since Rutgers entered the Big Ten in 2014, Penn State has won all four meetings by a combined score of 115-19.

The 26-2 mark overall, the 4-0 record in Big Ten-play, plus the 115-19 scoring margin are both proof enough that a rivalry does not currently. If this thing was going to happen, it was going to happen in 2014.

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For Rutgers' inaugural Big Ten campaign, the league had the presence of mind to have it play Penn State in its conference opener. The league was then savvy enough to put the game in prime-time with an 8 p.m. kickoff.

Game week included trash-talking, Leonte Carroo taking umbrage with things Penn State's Bill Belton said months earlier at Big Ten Media Day. Belton then turned out the lights with the game-sealing touchdown run after Gary Nova threw five interceptions in a 13-10 Penn State win.

That stands as the only competitive game of the last four years. If Rutgers gets that win, the complexion of this matchup might look different today, but given how the last three meetings have gone since that first one, all lopsided Penn State wins, maybe not.

Based on the way things have gone recently on both sides, it feels like it will be a while before Rutgers beats Penn State, which means it would be years before this matchup morphs into a rivalry.

Someone surely gave Sitkowski bad information on this topic.

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Staff writer Josh Newman: jnewman@app.com; @Joshua_Newman