How Penn State could derail its playoff hopes if not careful

With a top-5 ranking and the worst of their schedule out of the way, the Penn State Nittany Lions are sitting prettier than most teams today, as even if they don’t make their conference championship game, it has been made astonishingly clear that winning their last two regular-season games would be enough to earn them a decent seeding in the College Football Playoff bracket.

However, these circumstances do not change the way that many view PSU from a competitive standpoint, and that includes me. This is because the Nittany Lions have done next to nothing to earn any hype as a true challenger, whether that title be given to them in the Big Ten hunt or the national one—and that is because they have beaten no one of notable strength.

Now sure, people say that about all kinds of teams from all conferences, and sometimes it says more about their ridiculous expectations than anything else. That's not the case with Penn State though, as its biggest win so far has been over a three-loss Illinois, in Happy Valley, by a convincing-yet-not-intimidating score of 21-7.

When combining that with its loss to Ohio State—which is, without question, the toughest opponent it’s faced—the “eyeball test” tells even a blind guy that PSU still isn’t built for the highest level.

“Oh, but Austin! The Nittany Lions were able to compete with the Buckeyes! That means something!” Yeah, it means they’re good. I never said they weren’t, just that they weren’t good enough to win a title. If you’ve got a meaningless résumé (that includes multiple “struggle wins,” mind you) and your best performance was in a home loss to the only high-ranker you’ve encountered, I’m not interested—period.

In fact, I’ll take it a step further: I am so unconvinced by Penn State’s alleged potential to go the distance that I firmly believe the Nittany Lions are on upset alert for their upcoming duel with the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

Virtually nothing about this game favors Penn State

Think it about this way: What do we highlight when looking at any game, but especially upset alerts? The quality of the opponent, where the game is going down, and where on the schedule it’s placed. By all of those criteria, Minnesota looks like an absolute nightmare, being a bowl-bound foe, fresh off a bye, that has the privilege of hosting the Nittany Lions right before their Senior Day game against rival Maryland…so let’s say they lose. What then?

Well, especially if the loss is strangely diminishing in any way (such as by an inexcusably large margin of defeat or just flat-out playing ugly football), I feel that the defeat could be a playoff-missing error for them.

With them being ranked so comfortably high, I know that seems rather impractical, but hear me out: At that point, the Nittany Lions would be the fourth-best team in the Big Ten, and likely wouldn’t win a battle of worthiness with any of the several two-loss powers in the SEC (there are currently five).

From there, just throw in a few more conference champs (and maybe even a second Big 12 team, depending on the comparability of its argument) and boom—you and your terribly hollow case for making the bracket look like you’re holding out for a miracle.

That may sound like I’m going out of my way to be mean to Penn State, and that’s because I somewhat am. I always try to speak from the perspective of the college football fan, and PSU fans are rightfully livid with their Nittany Lions right now. Again, they’re good, but simply being good leaves the door open for suffering upsets to teams like this tricky (yet still heavily flawed) Minnesota that’s on the horizon.

If that happens, it won’t be a matter of whether the hammer comes down on them, but merely how hard it will do so, and with how deep the playoff pool is looking today, I wouldn’t expect much mercy.