PSU point-counter: What makes successful season? Rudel — Lions need to punch CFP ticket
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By Neil Rudel
nrudel@altoonamirror.com
I think it's pretty simple: The Nittany Lions must make the new 12-team College Football Playoff in order to consider 2024 a success.
And a 10-2 record should do that.
That would include a(nother) presumed loss to Ohio State, which is the Big Ten favorite and a national championship contender, and one other loss along a difficult road that features trips to West Virginia this Saturday, USC, Wisconsin and back-to-back November dates at Purdue and Minnesota.
Finishing 10-2 would likely land Penn State in the Top 12 and really the Lions have to be No. 11 at worst because the best team in the Group of 5 -- Memphis, Liberty, Boise State -- is guaranteed a place in the field and will be slotted at No. 12.
It's also possible that Penn State could lose only to Ohio State.
If the Lions are good enough to beat everybody else, they'll finish with a regular-season loss to the Buckeyes and potentially meet them again in the Big Ten
championship game.
To do that, they'll need to finish second in the now-divisionless Big Ten and stay ahead of Oregon -- the conference's other top contender led by Heisman Trophy candidate Dillon Gabriel.
The Ducks host the Buckeyes on Oct. 12 in one of the more anticipated games of the season. (Let's put to rest Big Ten favoritism to Ohio State, which goes on the road to Oregon and PSU. At least the Buckeyes have Michigan at home.)
But no matter how the Lions get there, 10-2 is 10-2, and it's probably not going to be enough to assure a first-round home playoff date (Dec. 20-21).
Which means the Lions would be an underdog on the road at, say, the No. 5, No. 6 or No. 7 seed.
It's a new refreshing landscape of possibilities, and if Penn State is just playing on the Saturday before Christmas -- presuming the Lions don't get housed at, say, Ole Miss -- this season will be successful.
There's no assurance that a 9-3 record would land any team in the playoff, and if the Lions finish with three regular-season losses, this season will not only be deemed a failure, James Franklin will begin 2025 on the hot seat.
In many ways -- especially with a returning starting quarterback who arrived in 2022 as a supposed five-star -- this season is a referendum on Franklin and on Drew Allar himself.
And while the schedule is challenging with the new Pac-12 additions, the Lions also get a break with Ohio State at home and not having to play Oregon or Michigan.
Still, though, expecting Penn State to get to the playoff and win a game to merely qualify this year as successful sets the bar too high.
Just getting to the playoff and losing may not give the fan base reason to believe in Franklin -- because most of it doesn't -- but it also shouldn't mean that the season wouldn't be a success.
Rudel can be reached at nrudel@altoonamirror.com.