November 13, 2016
We don’t cover all that much college football over here, but it’s probably fair to say that a portion of our readership is comprised Penn State fans. And for a fan base that has seen quite a lot of stuff go down since 2010, pretty much all of it bad (and some of it actually terrible), things are looking up for the Nittany Lions.
No. 10 Penn State had pretty much had a perfect day yesterday, the equivalent of the Eagles winning and the rest of the NFC East going 0-3 on the same day. First, James Franklin’s team finally remembered Indiana is a basketball school and stormed back from 10-point third-quarter deficit, avoiding the upset and earning a 45-31 win in Bloomington.
And then three teams ahead of them lost. Pitt, who handed Penn State one of their two losses, went to Death Valley and stunned No. 2 Clemson. No. 4 Washington lost to USC up in the Pacific Northwest. No 8 Texas A&M and No. 9 Auburn also fell, just for good measure.
Happy Valley might hold off on the “We Want Bama!” chants for at least another week (or forever, nobody should want to play Alabama), but you would have to imagine that the CFP committee ranks PSU no lower than eighth heading into next week. Eighth! That’s only four spots from the actually playoff!
Outside of any playoff hopes, we haven’t even mentioned the biggest domino that fell in Penn State’s favor of the day: No. 3 Michigan, who smoked PSU, lost to unranked Iowa, who PSU smoked. College football is weird, y’all:
So what does this mean? Well, Penn State has an excellent shot of representing the East Division in the Big Ten title game. You know, the same East Division that also has Ohio State and Michigan.
So how would that happen? These things need to happen down stretch:
• Penn State needs to win out, with games at Rutgers and home against Michigan State. They will be solid favorites in both, as those are the two worst teams in the East Division. I mean, Rutgers lost to Michigan, Ohio State, and Michigan State by a combined score of 185-0.
• Michigan has to lose one more time. They’ll very likely take care of business in Ann Arbor against Indiana next week, but that is followed by the all-important trip to Columbus. If Ohio State were to win that game and PSU also won out, they would be tied with one conference loss. The Nittany Lions hold the head-to-head tiebreaker with their 24-21 win over the Buckeyes earlier this year, so they would go to the title game.
This Penn State team with a very real shot at a B1G title? This Penn State team with an outside shot at the College Football Playoff? I don’t really understand it, but STATE is dramatically exceeding expectations in Year 3 under James Franklin. They're already having a great year, and there is a chance it gets even better.
(But seriously, Alabama would beat them by eleventy billion.)
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
