No. 3 Penn State vs. No. 1 Oregon Big Ten Championship Game final odds and prediction

Thanks to Ohio State’s Week 14 loss to Michigan, the Penn State Nittany Lions snuck into the Big Ten Championship Game against Oregon on Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. It will be the first time the two programs met since Penn State’s 1995 Rose Bowl win to finish off an undefeated 12-0 season. Now, it’s No. 1 Oregon looking to remain unbeaten against No. 3 Penn State. 

The Ducks have laid waste to the Big Ten in their first year in the conference. Now, instead of a rematch with the Buckeyes Dan Lanning has a chance to knock off all three perennial Big Ten powers in one season, Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State, and his team is favored to do it.  

James Franklin is looking for his first conference title since 2016, and Lanning is looking for Oregon’s first Big Ten crown in Year 1, and maybe more importantly, both want a first-round bye in the 12-team College Football Playoff. So, let’s get into the odds for this top-five matchup for the Big Ten title. 

Penn State vs. Oregon odds, spread, and total

These odds are available in the FanDuel Sportsbook. 

Moneyline

• Penn State +132
• Oregon -160

Spread

• Penn State +3.5 (-115)
• Oregon -3.5 (-105)

Total

• 50.5 (over -106/under -114)

Penn State vs. Oregon prediction

Penn State is an underdog in Indy, but not a considerable one. The Nittany Lions have only been tested by a top team one other time this season and even with a pick-six and a Will Howard fumble through the end zone for a touchback, still lost to Ohio State by seven. That score could have been much more lopsided, and now Penn State has to play one of two teams that beat the Buckeyes in 2024. 

The biggest problem that this Penn State team has faced all season, will still be an issue against the Ducks. Offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki and quarterback Drew Allar just don’t have enough wide receiver weapons to threaten elite defenses downfield in the passing game. They’ve still generated a 62nd-percentile explosive pass rate (better than Oregon’s 49th percentile), but Ohio State completely shut down Penn State’s wide receivers and made the offense one-dimensional. 

Against the Buckeyes, that dimension was tight end Tyler Warren, Penn State’s most reliable answer in the passing game and most successful short-yardage ball carrier. Oregon has had trouble with elite tight ends, allowing Michigan’s Colston Loveland to grab seven passes for 112 yards, but the more important dimension for the Nittany Lions will be the ground game. 

Lanning’s defense has a deep pass rush and if Jordan Burch is healthy enough to play after a 2.5 sack performance in the regular season finale, it will be even deeper. However, the Ducks have allowed 0.04 EPA/rush, 79th best in the country. Penn State running back Nicholas Singleton is finally back to 100% and will keep the Nittany Lions in this game, but the gap in skill position talent between the two teams will be too much to overcome. 

For Allar, Warren is the best tight end in the country, but Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel has three elite receivers to throw to. Tez Johnson, Evan Stewart, and Traeshaun Holden burned Ohio State down the field in that matchup, and the Buckeyes are even more stout defensively than Penn State has been this year. 

I expect this game to skew low-scoring, but the Ducks just have too many playmakers for Penn State to match. If the Nittany Lions can force Gabriel into red zone interceptions, which have been a problem for the sixth-year senior, they can pull the upset, but I’ll predict the Ducks to take it 24-17.

Beyond the actual matchup on the field, is the matchup on the sidelines and that might be Oregon's biggest advantage. Lanning is a new-age head coach who leans on analytics to make aggressive game-management decisions, and while at times it has cost him, more often than not it's played out in his favor. Franklin is historically conservative in big games, though he was very aggressive against Minnesota this season, and Franklin has historically struggled to beat highly ranked teams. Until Franklin proves he can beat one of the best teams in the country, it's hard to back him in big games like this one.