As the dog days of summer rage on, the content from college football analysts seem to keep pace.
CBS Sports Josh Pate on his College Football Show examined how good Penn State can be.
Pate and other analysts reviewed the 2024 team through half-empty and half-full glasses. The detractors point out Penn State being empty on major elite wins, with questions of the caliber of playoff wins (SMU and Boise State) along with losing to Notre Dame – a team many feel was at the same level as Penn State.
The promoters defended the 2024 team by pointing out that Penn State made it to the Big Ten Championship Game, picked up two College Football Playoff wins and was inches from making the national title game.
Pate overall likes Penn State’s chances in 2025.
But the questions are what scenarios would constitute success?
GLENDALE, AZ – DECEMBER 30: Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin speaks to the crowd after the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl college football game between the Washington Huskies and the Penn State Nittany Lions on December 30, 2017, at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, AZ. The Nittany Lions defeated the Huskies 35-28. (Photo by Carlos Herrera/Icon Sportswire)
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP= SUCCESS
No matter how you slice it, if your scenario ends with a national championship, it is a success.
Like I mentioned in a previous column comparing the 2024 Ohio State team to this squad, they can go 10-2 and win it all. That is a reality.
As Ryan Day always faces mounting pressure for his recent failures of beating “The Team Up North,” that’s neutralized by a national championship. That needs to be recognized here as well. Get into the playoffs and win it all is a raging success, style points aren’t necessary.
Photo by Matt Lynch, Nittany Sports Now: James Franklin
Undefeated Regular Season + Big Ten Championship + College Football Playoff Quarterfinal let down = FAILURE
I call this the Oregon scenario because that is what the 2024 Ducks did.
I was fortunate enough to cover the 2025 College Football Playoff Quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl and I engaged with a few Oregon fans as I headed to the press conferences.
Many completely forgot the dominance Oregon had in their first 13 wins.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.You might say that was raw emotions in the heat of the moment, but that’s the reactionary world we live in.
To go undefeated in the regular season and win a conference championship in the past was an automatic rubber stamp for success.
Not anymore.
I feel the “Big Game James” vitriol would be at a fever pitch in this scenario.
Penn State has averaged a 24.8 margin of victory in James Franklin’s 10 matchups against Maryland.
NOT WINNING A PLAYOFF GAME= FAILURE
The stakes are that much more difficult. In the college football I grew up with, making it to the Rose Bowl was a rubber stamp for success.
The scenario above can wrap into this one. You could come up with different styles on this but the one above is the best Penn State could do and have an early failure and it still is a failure.
Any Scenario That Has One Playoff Win – SUCCESS
Penn State could very well back door into the College Football Playoff, kind of like how Clemson did a season ago, win a playoff game and that is the lowest bar of success for me.
To me whether it is a first-round win, whether at Beaver Stadium or on the road, or a quarterfinal game that would either take place at the Rose, Orange, Sugar or Cotton Bowls, that would be success.
For Penn State to begin stacking seasons with playoff wins just adds to the consistency to the program. With greater access to the Playoff, Penn State has to establish itself as a dangerous team in the tournament. The only way is by winning playoff games consistently.
James Franklin is consoled by his daughter following Penn State’s loss in the Orange Bowl.
MISSING THE PLAYOFF= FAILURE
This should be a no brainer and a consensus among fans and analysts alike. If Penn State is in a New Year’s Day bowl or any other lower tier, this season went off the rails and was a giant missed opportunity. This team is way too talented and too deep not to make it.
MIAMI GARDENS, FL – JANUARY 09: Quarterback Drew Allar #15 of the Penn State Nittany Lions reacts after throwing an interception during the Penn State Nittany Lions versus the Notre Dame Fighting Irish College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Orange Bowl on January 9, 2025 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fl. (Photo by David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire)
LOSING THE NATIONAL TITLE GAME= THE WORST SCENARIO OF THEM ALL
Logically, the season has been a success there isn’t any doubt, but losing in the championship in any sports is the absolute worst feeling.
Think about it. If your team loses in a semifinal, you tend to look how many Penn State fans do with the 2024 group with more fondness about the hurdles they overcame. You can with a championship run, but often it is that final heartbreak that is often too much.
I’m hoping Pat Kraft reverses this, but I have always been a proponent on the facade of Beaver Stadium recognition of the 1978 and 1985 teams since they went undefeated in the regular season but fell short in the national championship.
Those teams are not recognized in Beaver Stadium. The feeling of being so close yet so far is the worst in sports no matter how much success was achieved before the ultimate failure.
