Penn State is through to the College Football Playoff semifinals after a 31-14 win over Boise State in Tuesday’s Fiesta Bowl.

They’ll play the Notre Dame/Georgia winner, a Sugar Bowl game that was rescheduled to Thursday evening due to the New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans.

Here are five thoughts on the Nittany Lions, the Boise game, and the playoff:

1) There’s too much talk about Penn State’s “easy” path and not enough talk about how good PSU is. This was a team that was top eight or top five for most of the season, and would have been favored against most of the teams in the playoff, not just Boise and SMU. They certainly would have been favored against Clemson, Arizona State, Indiana, SMU, Boise, Tennessee, and maybe Notre Dame is a -110/-110 push. Neutral site games against Texas, Ohio State, Oregon, and Georgia would probably max out with PSU as a +2.5 dog at the worst.

2) The reason for #1 is because people just don’t believe in James Franklin. Fair enough. The head coach is still a liability, but remember – the issue has never been PSU beating programs like SMU and Boise, it’s about going from “great” team to “elite” team. This season was always about whether or not they could get over the hump and make a deep playoff run, and maybe this lingering distrust of Franklin compromises people’s ability to recognize that the Lions have enough talent to win it all.


3) Andy Kotelnicki has been very good this season, but he can’t dick around in the semifinal and get away with it. This Boise game was 14-0 and PSU could have blown it open to make it 21-0. Instead, they ran a zone read for Drew Allar, who fumbled, then tried a trick play on 3rd down in their own half of the field, which failed and forced a punt. Boise came down and scored to make it a 14-7 game. PSU was running the ball well and got a little sloppy. Keep in mind, the Penn State fumble came after an Ashton Jeanty fumble, so there was a blown opportunity to capitalize on a turnover and punish the other team. Those bits of fortune are going to be few and far between against UGA or Notre Dame. The margin for error and general fuckery is so much smaller.

4) That being said, do we think Penn State “dominated” Boise or made it look easy? The Broncos missed two field goals and had a touchdown called back due to a penalty.  It was a one-score game for a bit, then PSU got it to 10, and really didn’t blow it open until Nick Singleton scored with 4:54 remaining in the fourth. Was Boise’s performance any worse than Indiana, Tennessee, Oregon, or SMU? Penn State’s defense makes a lot of teams look ordinary.

5) I still don’t think Penn State’s “path” was easier than Oregon’s. People kept making this claim that Oregon got screwed because they had to play Ohio State in the quarterfinal. Ohio State is better than Boise, yes, and no one will dispute that. But when you look at this thing in totality, Oregon’s reward for going 13-0 and winning the Big 10 was a first round bye and being on the opposite side of the bracket as the SEC champion. They got a week off, then traveled a few hours to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. Penn State had to beat SMU at home, then fly across the country to play Boise on a neutral field. Ohio State had to beat a 10-win SEC team, then go three time zones west to play the #1 seed. And the reason OSU was seeded 8th to begin with is because they choked at home against Michigan for their second loss.

For Oregon to win the national title, it required three wins. Penn State’s path requires four. No matter the level of competition, it’s tough to argue that winning four games is easier than winning three, especially when you consider that PSU is now going to have to beat the Georgia/ND winner, and then Ohio State or Texas in the natty. This is the playoff, after all, so you’re going to run into elite competition at some point. Nobody is winning this thing by playing four cupcakes in a row.