Penn State Football: Way too early game-by-game predictions for 2018
By Shane Lunnen
A rare September meeting with the Buckeyes will have early Big Ten title implications. This should be a good one.
Ohio State is coming off a 12-2 season with a Big Ten championship win over Wisconsin and a victory of USC in the Cotton Bowl. They came oh so close to making the College Football Playoff and will be looking to get there in 2018.
The Buckeyes will be breaking in a new quarterback with the graduation of JT Barrett. Dwayne Haskins will take over the starting duties and Penn State will be his first big conference test. Lucky for him, he’ll have the services of running backs Mike Weber and JK Dobbins along with the Buckeyes top six receivers from a year ago. Not bad for a guy learning the ropes. Ohio State loses several key guys on defense, but Urban Meyer can just reload and the defense will not miss a beat.
Expect this to be another close one like the previous two meetings. The teams will trade turnovers, each being turned into touchdowns in the first half. Things slow down in the third quarter and we’ll enter the final frame knotted up at 17 a piece. The fourth quarter will be the Lions undoing though, as Haskins leads the Buckeyes on two scoring drives against a still retooling defense for Penn State. The Lions score late, but fail to recover an onside kick and lose their first home game since the 2015 season.