Penn State fans are gonna like what Nick Saban had to say Saturday morning.
The iconic former Alabama coach who is now an analyst after retiring this January made his College Football Playoff predictions along with fellow panelists Kirk Herbstreit, Pat McAfee and Desmond Howard.
There will be 12 teams in this year’s College Football Playoff, tripling from four. Saban feels PSU will be one of them.
In Saban’s bracket, No. 9 PSU would face No. 8 Ole Miss in a Peach Bowl rematch that would take place in Oxford. That Peach Bowl didn’t go so well for PSU last December. Ole Miss won, 38-25.
But it’s a new year. Saban pointed out that PSU has an advantage it didn’t have previously in the James Franklin era.
“I think Penn State has got a really good team,” Saban said. “A good culture. They would have been in a 12-team Playoff the last couple of years.”
Nick Saban has Penn State in and facing Ole Miss in a Peach Bowl rematch.
Said he feels Penn State has a “really good team with a good culture.” pic.twitter.com/pfJBpV6SoS
— Joe Smeltzer (@joesmeltzer775) August 24, 2024
Indeed, had the Playoff expanded from four to 12 in 2016, PSU would have made it in six of the past eight seasons.
Saban wasn’t alone in picking Penn State to go to the Playoff.
Despite being a former Ohio State QB, Herbstreit has long been a favorite of Penn State fans. Now, Nittany Nation has one more reason to like him.
Herbstreit not only has PSU making the Playoff, but hosting a game.
In this bracket, PSU is the eight seed, and it would face an old foe in No. 9 Notre Dame. That’s a matchup that could be played under White Out conditions at Beaver Stadium.
Notre Dame visited Happy Valley frequently before Penn State started playing in the Big Ten in 1993 but hasn’t played in Beaver Stadium since 2007. That game— a Penn State win— was the program’s first full-stadium White Out.
Kirk Herbstreit has Penn State hosting Notre Dame. pic.twitter.com/E7Geja0MWh
— Joe Smeltzer (@joesmeltzer775) August 24, 2024
Howard and McAfee have Penn State out of the Playoff, with Howard listing Penn State as an honorable mention and McAfee saying PSU will have a good shot to make it if it beats his alma mater West Virginia— which he has as the three-seed and Big 12 champion— in Morgantown next Saturday.
