College football writer predicts Penn State football’s playoff chances

Kevin McGuire of Athlon Sports took a stab at predicting Penn State football’s chances of making the CFB playoffs this season.

It’s no secret that the 2019 Penn State football team is headed in a different direction in comparison to previous years. For one, the Nittany Lions will be without their three-year starter, Trace McSorley. Anytime a team heads into a new year without the same passer as the previous season, the offense could have a drastic change, for better or for worse.

Obviously, there’s hope that McSorley’s replacement, Sean Clifford lives up to his former mentor’s expectations, but right now Clifford is a big question mark for the offense. At this point, it’s apparent that the Nittany Lions’ strength comes on the defensive side of the ball.

There’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that the Lions defense will impress this season. So what needs to go right for them in order to remain relevant within the top ten in college football? Do they even have a chance of potentially being mentioned in the CFB Playoffs in 2019?

Athlon Sports and College Football Talk writer Kevin McGuire recently discussed the potential of the Lions in 2019. Considering they were never able to crack the four-team tournament in the recent past, he wouldn’t rule the possibility of PSU making it for next season. While it seems unlikely the Lions would make it there in what could be considered as a ‘re-building’ season, he still remained candid and offered three reasons why we should all expect the unexpected.

How could Penn State make the playoffs?

For starters, nobody knows what to expect from Sean Clifford under center this year. While that seems like a bad thing for the Lions, the Sophomore starter could surprise a lot of people. Over the last few years, teams had tape on Trace McSorley — so they knew what they had to do to try and stop the Lions quarterback. In this case, nobody knows what Clifford is capable of. Sure, he’s a pure pocket passer, but apparently, he’s worked on mobility this summer as well.

Speaking of the unexpected, the Lions also have a new running back leading the backfield in Ricky Slade. While Slade isn’t viewed as a Saquon Barkley or a Miles Sanders, the Lions could utilize a committee of backs this year with Slade leading the charge. Let’s also not forget that Journey Brown was one of James Franklin’s favorite to have a breakout season.

Then, there’s the Lions defense. As stated before, that will be the best strength of the team as there is plenty of experience returning on that side of the ball. Not to mention, they have two potential first-round picks in Micah Parsons and Yetur Gross-Matos headlining the unit.

Now onto the negative stuff

Sure, Penn State COULD make the CFB playoffs, but it’s a bit of a longshot. With all of the unknowns comes reality. There’s going to be an adjustment period for the Lions on offense, and McGuire makes a great point, stating that with adjustments comes turnovers.

And with turnovers, come losses. Last year, the Lions weren’t as protective with the ball. Not to mention, they also struggled with their wideouts dropping the ball as well. Simple mistakes like that will surely cost a team big time in the long run.

Then, the final point was the obvious one — Penn State will have to get through Ohio State and Michigan in order to make it to the promise land. Franklin hasn’t had the best track record against the Big Ten powerhouse’s in the past, and there hasn’t been much confidence from the outsiders looking in this season as well. According to McGuire, we could be looking at a 9-3 season. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this predicted record, and likely won’t be the last. It’s not bad, but undoubtedly not good enough to make it where they want to be.