Penn State season preview: Best and worst-case scenario

Penn State football ends the 2018 season with changes at main positions, but will still look to contend in the Big Ten.

Penn State entered the 2017 campaign with high hopes and seemed on its way to the College Football Playoff. That stalled, however, after back-to-back losses to Ohio State and Michigan State, finishing at 10-2 and out of the National Championship mix.

A win over Washington at the Fiesta Bowl brought the Nittany Lions an 11th win and a successful end to their season, even though it did not achieve the title aspirations. To get back to this range, though, it will take the replacement of one of the program’s best players of the millennium.

Quarterback Trace McSorley is back as a senior, for one last chance at glory. He started the previous two years for Penn State, leading them to a New Year’s Six game each year. So, they have consistency at the main position and at wide receiver, with Juwan Johnson and DeAndre Thompkins around.

There’s no more Saquon Barkley, however, as he went No. 2 overall in the 2018 NFL Draft to the New York Giants. Replacing him, a Heisman Trophy candidate, will be a tall task, if not impossible. This will be up to a group that includes Miles Sanders and Mark Allen, both of whom are upperclassmen; these two combined for 239 yards in 2017.

Barkley was one of six Nittany Lions to go in the NFL Draft; this included Mike Gesicki in the second round, formerly one of McSorley’s top targets. Wide receiver DaeSean Hamilton was also selected in April, the team’s leading receiver in the 2017 season.

These departures mean Penn State will not have three of its five leaders in receiving yards back. That puts pressure on the aforementioned Johnson and Thompkins to step up and continue to take the majority of the workload.

So, Penn State took a heavy loss on the offensive side of the ball, which does not help McSorley whatsoever. That puts pressure on him and the defense to shine.

Coach James Franklin should still have a decent team in place, but one that will be predicted by many to not finish at the top of the Big Ten. That’s with strong Ohio State and Michigan teams ahead of them, as well as Iowa and Wisconsin on the opposite side of the division.

How will everything stack up for Penn State? Its 2018 schedule might be telling:

• Saturday, Sept. 1 vs. Appalachian State
• Saturday, Sept. 8 at Pittsburgh
• Saturday, Sept. 15 vs. Kent State
• Friday, Sept. 21 at Illinois
• Saturday, Sept. 29 vs. Ohio State
• Saturday, Oct. 13 vs. Michigan State
• Saturday, Oct. 20 at Indiana
• Saturday, Oct. 27 vs. Iowa
• Saturday, Nov. 3 at Michigan
• Saturday, Nov. 10 vs. Wisconsin
• Saturday, Nov. 17 at Rutgers
• Saturday, Nov. 24 vs. Maryland

Best-case scenario: Penn State overachieves and finds a way to topple two of Michigan, Ohio State and Wisconsin. That could give them an 11-1 or 10-2 record along the way and the chance at another New Year’s Six game. This feels like an outside chance, however, due to that Sept. 29 to Nov. 10 stretch.

Penn State likely needs to grind it out with these difficult opponents to win games and hope Ohio State’s offense sputters with a different face at quarterback. The same for offensive uncertainty in Michigan

Worst-case scenario: It might be extreme, but there’s a case to be made for four or five losses; they would be to Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Wisconsin. That dangerous part of the schedule will make or break Penn State’s season, and they can easily lose three, four or all five of those games and finish 7-5 in one of Franklin’s most disappointing years of his tenure.

Each of these has the potential to be close games, all of which the Nittany Lions can fall short in and tailspin out of the top bowl-game picture. That’s a long way off, though, with a light four games to start the season and begin in the right direction.

Penn State is in for its post-Barkley era, and it has much to ponder for how the offense looks after a few fantastic seasons. Let’s see what happens when they take the field on Saturday, Sept. 1 against Appalachian State and on from there.