Michigan stuns Ohio State as Penn State's Big Ten championship hopes stay alive

Entering today, Penn State needed Michigan to defeat Ohio State in Columbus while taking care of Maryland at Beaver Stadium. With step one complete, as Michigan grinded out a 13-10 victory over the No. 2 ranked Buckeyes,

Penn State now needs to defeat the 4-7 Maryland Terrapins in Happy Valley on Saturday afternoon. Ohio State were 19.5 point favorites against Michigan, per the FanDuel Sportsbook

Even if Indiana defeated Purdue on Saturday, Penn State would still be making the trip to Indianapolis next weekend with a win against Maryland. The tiebreaker between the teams would come down to higher cumulative conference winning percentage. With wins from both teams, Penn State’s would be a 41.98 win percentage and Indiana’s would be a 34.57 win percentage. 

There was chatter among Penn State fans this week if losing the Big Ten championship game to Oregon would negatively impact the Nittany Lions enough to drop them below the eight seed, thus not hosting a playoff game. However, getting the chance to compete for a bye and a top two seed in the college football playoff is worth the chance of losing to Oregon.

Teams should not be penalized harshly for losing their conference championship games. It would set a bad precedent if Penn State were to drop out of a 5-8 seed and not host a first round game of the college football playoff. If this is the case, why should fringe playoff teams even want to make the conference championship game if losing drops your program several spots in the rankings.

Penn State fans should be happy that Michigan took down Ohio State on Saturday, but let’s not celebrate until the Nittany Lions take care of business today in Beaver Stadium.