Can Penn State beat Ohio State, win Big Ten and make CFP?

Do the Penn State Nittany Lions have what it takes to beat the Ohio State Buckeyes, reach the Big Ten Championship and make the College Football Playoff?

It wasn’t a huge game, but it was still an important game. The Penn State Nittany Lions held on to beat a solid Indiana Hoosiers team at home to improve to 9-1 on the season. Indiana wasn’t a ranked team and had never won in Beaver Stadium before, but the Hoosiers gave the Nittany Lions all they could handle. Regardless, all of Penn State’s wildest dreams are still alive.

Even though they lost last week in Minneapolis to the Minnesota Golden Gophers, Penn State can still make the College Football Playoff this season. But do they have what it takes to run the gauntlet and get in? Can they beat the Ohio State Buckeyes, reach the Big Ten title game in Indianapolis and win that game to reach the Playoff for the first time in school history?

Well, we’ll have a better feel for that in a week, as the Nittany Lions will have to go into The Horseshoe and upset the Ohio State Buckeyes. If they can do that, then Penn State will get back into the top-four of the College Football Playoff rankings and would have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Ohio State, which is crucial for Penn State to win the Big Ten East.

After upsetting Ohio State in Columbus, Penn State can’t screw up most catastrophically by falling at home to the pitiful Rutgers Scarlet Knights. But at 11-1 (8-1) with a victory over Ohio State, yes, Penn State will represent the Big Ten East in Indianapolis. Awaiting them will likely be the same Golden Gophers team they lost to last week. Penn State would like that very much.

The chances of a team beating one for the second time in a conference title bout is so difficult. Minnesota is a strong program under P.J. Fleck, but how sure are we that his team can have the steadiness to beat the same blue-blood program twice in roughly a month? For that reason, you have to like Penn State over Minnesota in a neutral-site rematch.

Of course, Minnesota hasn’t won the Big Ten West yet. The Gophers have three more division games left vs. the Iowa Hawkeyes, the Northwestern Wildcats and the Wisconsin Badgers. Minnesota will beat Northwestern in Evanston, but may not get past fellow top-25 teams in Iowa on the road and Wisconsin at home.

If Minnesota loses to Iowa and then falls to Wisconsin, then the Badgers will represent the Big Ten West in the conference championship game. We would have to like Penn State over Wisconsin in that game, as the Badgers have lost twice this year in Big Ten play to the Illinois Fighting Illini and Ohio State. However, they could be a tougher challenge than Minnesota would in the same spot.

Overall, if Penn State somehow knocks off Ohio State in Columbus, they should be a favorite to win the Big Ten and reach the College Football Playoff. But if they lose in The Horseshoe, at best they can hope for an appearance in the Rose Bowl as a two-loss, non-Power 5 champion. Their Playoff dreams all hinge on how they play in Columbus next week in a massive football game.

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