Penn State controls its own destiny for College Football Playoff

The road to the College Football Playoff goes through Beaver Stadium.  Can this Penn State team stay on the pathway or will they be forced to take a detour before getting to their destination?

The road to the college football playoffs is often pock-marked with bumps, twist-and-turns, and potential pitfalls.  The path for Penn State is no different, except they an HOV express lane to national prominence, as long as they can merge into it.

All the way from State College, PA the Nittany Lions have a direct sightline to Santa Clara, California, site of this year’s college football title game.  You see, Penn State’s 2018 schedule is riddled with opportunities for the Nittany Lions to control their own destiny and to make their undeniable case for college football supremacy.

What the Nittany Lions do with their opportunities this season will be the defining moments of the 2018 campaign.  Heartbreaking losses the previous two seasons have forced the Nittany Lions to rely on other teams and pollsters to have a shot at making the College Football Playoff.

Of course Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin will pump the brakes on any national title talk, and rightly so.  His “1-0 for the week” mantra has focused the young Lions on the team it faces that week, and that week only.  It can be said that looking too far ahead has cost Penn State the last two years.

The college football dream the past two seasons  ended in disaster after disappointing losses to Pitt (2016), and Ohio State and Michigan State (2017).  This season, though, feels different.  Each win, no matter how it looks to the outside, moves the Nittany Lions bandwagon one step closer to the California coast.

Penn State encountered their first major hurdle right out of the gate.

The opening weekend saw the Nittany Lions confronted by an Appalachian State team that was better than most were giving credit.  Yes, the Nittany Lions defense had their troubles in the fourth quarter, but they survived and advanced.  And, in the world of college football, that’s really all the Nittany Lions needed to do.  Had they lost that game, their chances of making the title game would have perhaps irreparably damaged.

This past Friday night, Penn State once again showed their youth and inexperience, especially on the defensive side of the ball.  Still, they managed to resoundingly defeat Illinois 63-24.  The game, at times, was not pretty, and the Nittany Lions made more mistakes than one would want, but just as with App State, the name of the game is to keep winning.

Before everyone begins to panic and thinks the Nittany Lions have to win games impressively, think about it this way, if Penn State were to win its remaining games by a single point each, they’d still qualify for the playoffs.  How can that be, you ask?  The next seven weeks will define Penn State’s season.

The schedule features no less than four teams currently ranked in the top-18 of the Amway Coaches Poll (Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan State).  Three of those four teams visit Beaver Stadium (Penn State travels to Michigan on November 3).  Penn State has not lost a home game since it lost to Michigan on November 21, 2015.  Since then, the Nittany Lions are 16-0 at home.  This further underscores the importance of Penn State taking advantage of their schedule this year.

Should Penn State survive and win those games, they must also defeat pesky Indiana and Iowa squads.  Do so, and Penn State will have likely won the Big Ten East division.

If the Nittany Lions can manage to win the Big Ten East, they will likely have to defeat Wisconsin for a second time to win the Big Ten conference title.  Should the Nittany Lions manage to go undefeated in the regular season and win the Big Ten conference title, there won’t be a voting pollster that would keep Penn State out of the college football playoffs.

Lose any game, including the Big Ten title game and once again, Penn State’s playoff fate will be left in the hands of pollsters.

With only four games played thus far, there are a lot of unknowns for Penn State.

Still, the fact remains the Nittany Lions currently control their own destiny when it comes to reaching the CFP.  The drive to national prominence begins this weekend with a “Whiteout” clash against Big Ten rival and top-five ranked Ohio State.

The Buckeyes have annually been one of the Big Ten’s best teams.  A Penn State victory over their rival has always been considered a capstone to their season.  While that would once again likely be the case, it would be one more step in the drive towards reaching the playoffs.