A lot of outlets, local and national, believe Penn State is going to win the national championship, and one of them is Sports Illustrated.
Pat Forde not only wrote an entire article explaining it, SI referred to PSU winning as “our most dangerous prediction.”
“Now it’s time to believe the repair work is done,” Forde wrote. “The holes have been patched. The faucets work. The stars and players and coaches and schedule have aligned. James Franklin, armed with his best coaching staff, will win big games. Drew Allar, surrounded by his best offensive talent, will make throws. New receivers will get open and make crucial catches. Veteran defenders will make the vital tackles. Experienced kickers will make clutch kicks.”
But, as Forde points out, the biggest thing this Penn State team has going against it is history.
PSU hasn’t won a national title in almost 40 years.
In the Franklin era, the program has developed a reputation for falling short in big games that, frankly, isn’t entirely unjustified.
Since Franklin took over in 2014, Penn State is 1-14 against top five teams, with the latest three losses coming last season.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Penn State had a chance to knock off Ohio State in a top-five regular season showdown and lost.
In the Big Ten Championship Game, Penn State had a crack at the No. 1 team in the country in Oregon, and lost again.
The most painful setback was in the Orange Bowl/College Football Playoff semifinal against Notre Dame, which ultimately ended Penn State’s season.
“But there is no rewriting history on that front—the streak is the streak, dating to a time when Joe Paterno still had a quarter century left in his Penn State tenure,” Forde wrote. “Since then, the Nittanies have had nine seasons with at least 11 wins—so many victories, so little to show for it.”
Penn State helped itself in rewriting the narrative during last year’s College Football Playoff. The team took care of SMU and Boise State with relative ease.
But SMU isn’t cut from the cloth that programs like Ohio State, Notre Dame and Texas are, and until Penn State beats a team cut from that cloth, it won’t reach the mountaintop.
