Old Ironsides was the trophy awarded for the three-way college football rivalry between the Penn State Nittany Lions, the Pittsburgh Panthers, and the West Virginia Mountaineers.

Although Old Ironsides is the most distinctive aspect of the rivalry, the trophy was long predated by the significance of the universities' collegiate football matches.

[6] In 1900, the first rivalry qualifying season took place as Western University played both Penn State and West Virginia.

Western University lost both matchups, making the first result a split championship between Penn State and West Virginia.

By 1908, the battle between the three was considered a championship and representative of supremacy in Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia and a 1921 article from The Pittsburg Press referred to a triangular rivalry between the schools as they competed for the "sectional title".

[9][10] By the 1930s, the trio was simply referred to as "the east's Big Three"[11] Over time, Central and Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and eastern Ohio became considered the Tri-State district for college athletics.

[3][16] The Old Ironsides trophy was introduced to the Big Three championship in 1951 by the Pittsburgh Junior Chamber of Commerce to be given to the winner of the round robin.

[20] During the 1952 season, the trophy was presented by former Pitt halfback Emil Narick to The University of Pittsburgh's athletic director Tom Hamilton.

Hamilton was head coach for the Panthers in their 1951 season during which Pitt defeated both Penn State and West Virginia, thus winning the first year of competition for Old Ironsides.

[30] A 1975 article in Penn State's Daily Collegian student newspaper reported that the trophy had sat in "its homely location between the men's and women's rooms in the upstairs hallway of Rec Hall for 10 years.

When the West Virginia Department of Athletics requested the trophy be handed over by Penn State in 1984, a search of their office and museum proved fruitless.

[35] There was no official method of tiebreaking,* so in rivalry-qualifying years (seasons where each club plays at least one in-rivalry game) which end with a two or three-way tie it is ruled a split championship.

If no team possessed an outright superior record in a qualifying season, no champion was named and no shares or claims were recognized.