Penn State football: CFB Insider projects less than eight wins for Lions

Another day, another power rankings sleeping on the 2019 Penn State football roster.

For the first time in a long time, the Penn State football program is finding out just how frustrating it can be to head into a new season without a surefire starting quarterback. Over the last three seasons, the Nittany Lions have been spoiled like they haven’t been spoiled before.

Sure, there’s a lot of quarterbacks who have been quite successful during their time with the Lions — but no quarterback put up numbers like Trace McSorley did. After all, he’s now the Nittany Lions All-Time passing leader with the most wins as the starting quarterback.

While the Lions coached up Tommy Stevens to be McSorley’s successor, the young passer decided a transfer elsewhere to join his former offensive coordinator would be best. Now, Penn State is looking for both, Stevens and McSorley’s replacement for the 2019 season.

The sky isn’t falling in Happy Valley, though. Well, at least we don’t think it is. Knowing there’s an intense battle for the starting quarterback position between Sean Clifford and Will Levis seems promising. At the same time, though, what gets done on the practice field may not translate well to the game environment on a Saturday.

If you were curious as to why Penn State isn’t receiving all of the respect on power rankings and preseason polls as of late, this is the exact reason why. This team is youthful and lacking experience in some of the most critical positions in football.

So when a College Football Insider doesn’t believe the Lions are going to be legitimate contenders in 2019 this early on, we totally understand. However, at least Penn State is still getting credit for being a potential Top-25 program heading into the new year — so at least there’s that.

Is Penn State easily a Top-15 Program this year?

Every preseason poll or power ranking typically has Penn State within the Top-25. And most of them have placed Penn State just within the Top-15. College Football Insider Brett McMurphy is no different. According to his latest preseason poll via Stadium, McMurphy ranked PSU at No. 15.

“It will be fascinating to see how this season turns out. The schedule is set up for the Nittany Lions to start 5-0, but in the second half of the year they take on Iowa, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Michigan,” McMurphy explained as he pinned PSU’s potential struggles on the QB situation.

The good news is that a hot start is predicted for the Lions. The bad news is that they could see a significant collapse towards the home-stretch of the season as the schedule begins to get tricky. All in all, McMurphy projected a total of 7.75 wins for Penn State, give or take. Last season, 9-4 came off as disappointing — so under eight this year would be a tough pill to swallow as well.