Penn State lost to Oregon in the Big 10 Championship Game, final score 45 to 37:

There’s some irony in the fact that PSU scored 37 points in this game and still lost. James Franklin has gone through a revolving door of offensive coordinators in Happy Valley and settled this year on Andy Kotelnicki, who ran a unit that averaged almost 450 yards and 33 points per game. So the offense comes up short against Ohio State, then explodes against Oregon, only for the defense to look like Sean Desai’s Philadelphia Eagles. This is the same D that played a great game against the Buckeyes while the offense was shit, then the regular season ended with the offense playing a great game against Oregon while the defense looked like shit.

Penn State was a 3.5 point underdog, but this was a winnable game. They got thrashed early, mounted a comeback, then stumbled again in the third period. They did enough in the fourth to make it a one-score game before the interception, and say what you will about the decision to try the Philly Special for a two-point conversion, but that ultimately didn’t have a huge impact on the larger story of the game, which was Oregon’s offense answering the call over and over again. People want to kill Franklin, and justifiably so, but they were a neutral field dog against an undefeated, #1 ranked team. Ohio State at home was the more disappointing loss, imo. Michigan at home in 2023 – more disappointing. Minnesota in 2019? Definitely. In this case, it’s the age-old question of “how disappointed are you when the loss was expected?” Oregon ran the table playing a tougher schedule and they were favored for a reason.

We’ll see what happens in the playoff, but this is typical Penn State, where you look at 11-2 and think about how hard it is to consistently win double-digit games in college football. Then you pause and ask yourself what their best win of the season was. In terms of grit and guts and all that, it was the comeback in Southern California. But the Trojans finished 6-6, and the team with the best record was Illinois. So Penn State’s best win in 2024 was home against the Illini. That’s a tough look. Penn State’s ceiling is a top five program, they just can’t break the last glass barrier to reach the top of the college football pyramid.