Clemson Football: Five teams that could wreck the College Football Playoffs
By John Chancey
Big Ten – Penn State Nittany Lions
Second eye roll of the day, and I get it. Not only is Penn State a blue-blood, but they have been ranked in the Top 10 all season long.
Both are very true but also don’t change the fact that during the CFP era, the Nittany Lions have never broken through and grabbed that playoff berth. They have always had Ohio State or Michigan ahead of them.
Even when Penn State won the conference in 2016, they still lost out on the playoffs while the Buckeye team they beat got a bid.
This could be their best chance to break through. Ohio State looks alright, but they don’t have the high-powered offensive attack they’ve featured in years past. Michigan is Michigan: they haven’t played anyone good enough to test them, so we don’t know yet if they measure up to the squads of the past two seasons.
Penn State is the only team to beat West Virginia thus far. They shut out an Iowa team that was ranked at the time. They have two road conference wins already. They hit the road in a couple of weeks to play OSU, and then they host Michigan in mid-November.
And let’s face it: the only other undefeated team in the Big Ten is Maryland. I love teams that disrupt the apple cart, but I’m not ready to jump on that bandwagon yet.