5 thoughts from Penn State’s first-ever CFP win over SMU at Beaver Stadium

For the first time in James Franklin’s 11-year tenure in Happy Valley, Penn State finished as a top-four team in the country, though, this year with the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, that didn’t guarantee a spot in the CFP semifinal. Instead, it meant the No. 6 overall seed and a first-round home game against ACC runner-up No. 11 SMU. The result on Saturday was catharsis. 

Two first-half pick-sixes from SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings, returned by linebackers Dominic DeLuca and Tony Rojas led to a 28-0 halftime lead and a celebratory atmosphere in Happy Valley. Penn State cruised to a 38-10 first-round victory to set up a quarterfinal contest with No. 3 Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl.  

While it wasn’t against a top-five team, James Franklin got an elusive big-game victory, and his Nittany Lions looked like a big-time national championship contender, but that wasn’t the only takeaway from Saturday’s result. 

1. Home-field advantage is real

The 12-team CFP format is as flawed as it is impermanent. Boise State and Arizona State earning first-round byes will almost certainly lead to an eventual change to achieve a bracket that more accurately reflects and awards the best teams in college football, and those changes may come with expansion, which feels inevitable. However, the one part of the new CFP that has a near-unanimous approval rating is first-round home games, and the atmosphere at Beaver Stadium on Saturday afternoon is why. 

The 106,000 fans that braved the elements in Happy Valley for a snowy White Out caused big problems for Jennings and the SMU offense. When he wasn’t throwing ill-advised interceptions, the Mustang’s offense ran surprisingly well. That is until they reached the red zone approaching the south end zone, where the Penn State student section resides. 

SMU came away with just three points on those two red zone trips and had just as many false start penalties. Down 31-3 in the third quarter, a false start turned first-and-goal from the two-yard line into first-and-goal from the seven, and eventually into a failed 42-yard field goal attempt. 

Penn State had plenty of advantages on Saturday, but playing at Beaver Stadium may have been the biggest one. 

2. James Franklin’s newfound aggressiveness may come back to bite him

"I told the guys we were going to call the game aggressively,” James Franklin said in his postgame press conference, and call the game aggressively he did. 

Up 14-0 in the second quarter, Franklin left his offense on the field for fourth-and-1 from his team’s own 19-yard line. Allar was stopped short on a quarterback sneak, giving the ball back to SMU’s sputtering offense on the cusp of the red zone with a chance to make a game of it. Two plays later, DeLuca took the ball away with his second interception of the game, bailing Franklin out for his decision. 

Franklin’s approach to that early-game decision isn’t necessarily new. He stole a win from Minnesota with a fourth-quarter fake punt that led to the game-winning score and in the Big Ten Championship loss to Oregon, Franklin came under fire for an analytically sound two-point conversion attempt. 

There’s aggressiveness, there’s analytically driven decision-making, and then there’s whatever Franklin thought he was doing Saturday afternoon. When weighing risk vs. reward in that instance, Penn State’s best-case scenario was first-and-10 from the 21-yard line, up 14-0, and the worst case was a turnover on downs and a 14-7 game. The call was nonsensical, even if it had worked that would have been the case. Franklin needs to find a balance in his game management philosophy because a better opponent will make him pay. 

"I can't say that all week long and then not do it," Franklin continued of his baffling choice. Actually James, you can. "I'd call it again," he finished. I sure hope you won't.

3. The goalposts have moved, but also, they haven’t

Penn State has won a College Football Playoff game. James Franklin officially won a “big one” but this game, frankly, isn’t big enough. Penn State has been in this exact same spot before, the final eight teams in the country, the 12-team CFP just didn’t exist then. The expectation for the last 10 seasons was not the CFP, but the CFP semifinal, where the tournament coincidentally began. The same is true for 2024. 

That may feel like moving the goalposts, but really, they’re right where they’ve always been. Penn State needs to contend for a national championship, and unless the Nittany Lions beat Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl CFP quarterfinal, that isn’t the case. 

4. The Lawn Boyz could carry the offense

Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen profess to be the best backfield in college football, and their quarterback agrees. “They’re the best backfield in America,” Allar said in the postage presser. “When you have guys like Nick and Kaytron who make a lot of guys miss, it just really helps out offense flow as a whole.”

Despite Allar’s 13/22 performance for a lackluster 127 yards against the Mustangs, Penn State dominated offensively, especially in the second half. The Nittany Lions finished off their 38-point performance with a 9-play 75-yard touchdown drive that bridged the third and fourth quarters, and every yard of it came on the ground.

Both Singleton and Allen averaged exactly 6.4 yards per carry, the latter finishing with 90 yards and a touchdown on 14 attempts and the former racking up 70 and two scores on 11 rushes. Against SMU’s top-10 ranked run defense, the Nittany Lions generated 0.04 EPA/carry with a 46% success rate on the ground. 

Allar was the star of the Big Ten title game, but with Penn State’s lack of playmakers in the passing game, this offense is at its best when it’s flowing through the Lawn Boyz and that may be the biggest reason for optimism heading into the rest of the postseason. 

5. Other quarterbacks may not make it so easy, but maybe they will

Penn State dominated SMU, but nobody was more responsible for that result than Kevin Jennings. The SMU quarterback, who was prone to turbulent performances this season, had the ultimate valley on Saturday afternoon. Beyond his three first-half interceptions, which led directly to 21 points, Jennings also took points off the board for SMU. 

On its first drive on the game, Rhett Lashlee’s offense displayed an up-tempo style that Penn State looked entirely unprepared for which led SMU to the doorstep of the red zone. The Mustang's best path to victory was to strike first and force the Nittany Lions to play from behind, but on fourth-and-1, he passed up a first down for a touchdown and with an awful throw came away empty-handed. 

If you include an 18-yard third-quarterback that turned a chip shot into a 42-yard field attempt that Collin Rogers missed, you could easily argue that in a 38-10 loss, Jenning’s performance gave Penn State a 24-point swing. 

Jenning was one of the more dynamic quarterbacks in the country this season, but his wretched performance ended SMU’s dream season. It’s easy to say that no other quarterback in the College Football Playoff would hand Penn State such an easy victory, but the path to the national championship game now appears to go through Boise State’s Maddux Madsen, and either Georgia’s Gunner Stockton, who replaced Carson Beck after his season-ending elbow injury and Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard. That’s not exactly the Davey O’Brien watch list or a Mel Kiper Jr. mock draft.