Penn State football shares AP Top-25 Poll rank with Wisconsin

Penn State football remains unbeaten, but their recent win didn’t improve their spot on the AP Top-25 Poll.

There are mixed feelings all throughout Happy Valley this week. While Penn State football won their rivalry game against the Pitt Panthers, the obvious struggles left many fans with a bad taste in their mouth. What was expected to be a blowout, turned into a tightly-squeezed win.

Granted, a win is a win, and they should be taken however, you can get them. But when it comes to inferior opponents, college teams are supposed to steamroll the competition. Many worried last week when Penn State struggled early on against Buffalo.

The Nittany Lions made adjustments at half though and came out firing in the third and fourth quarter. Suddenly, a close game turned into a blowout by the Lions. This week, we saw a similar scenario as Penn State struggled against Pitt early on.

The second-half adjustments weren’t nearly as effective this time around though. Had Pittsburgh’s head coach, Pat Narduzzi made better decisions; we could be eyeing up a potential Penn State loss. That’s not the case, though.

Penn State was able to come away with the win and remain unbeaten. Nobody can precisely complain about that. However, Penn State’s struggles have caught the eyes of the coaches poll voters. Going into the game, the Nittany Lions were ranked No. 13.

Had they taken care of Pittsburgh the way they were expected to, we would probably see them move up slightly in the ranks. But after winning by seven points with a last-minute play potentially tieing it up, Penn State didn’t come off as impressive as they should’ve been. Therefore, they stay put with their initial ranking heading into the week. And now, they have to share with somebody.

Welcome Wisconsin

Penn State’s Big Ten foes, Wisconsin has been slightly creeping behind for the last couple of weeks. As long as both teams remained unbeaten, it was only a matter of time before they got placed alongside each other. Well, this week is the week. At No. 13 ranks not only Penn State but Wisconsin as well.

Without a game this week, Wisconsin moved up in the rankings by default. Considering they have put up 110 points and let up zero thus far, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Badgers are moving on up in the NCAA. That may not last long though.

As Penn State gets the week off, the Nittany Lions will be able to see Wisconsin take their first major test of the season as they face off against Michigan. While the Badgers have looked good in their first two appearances, they didn’t play any teams that were of Michigan’s caliber. We’ll see if PSU remains linked to Wisconsin after this week.