It has always come down to Columbus.
Penn State’s daily 1-0 mantra has been as much about getting there with something to play for as it has been about the week’s actual opponent. Go 1-0 each week and you get a chance to play Ohio State for the Big Ten East and a puncher’s chance at a playoff bid. Go 1-0 and you eventually get to once again play in the ‘big game.’
That didn’t change with a loss to Minnesota, and it didn’t change with a victory over Indiana on Saturday.
The road has always been the same.
Which in a lot of ways minimizes the stops on that path. It neglects to mention that Penn State has gotten to 9-1 without the starting quarterback it expected to have. It got to 9-1 without a handful of early NFL-bound players and departing seniors. It got there with wins over Michigan, Michigan State and Iowa, the latter two both on the road and neither particularly easy trips to make. It accomplished things that better teams haven’t.
It meant overcoming halftime deficits and winning close contests. Penn State has won four games this season that were undecided by the time the fourth quarter began. It has — far more often than not — made the stops it needed and produced points when it had to have them.
There is, of course, the loss to Minnesota but also an argument to be made Penn State was due for a performance like that. Sean Clifford was bound to have a bad outing and the defense was bound to get burnt by the big plays it had been quietly giving up all season long. Penn State’s loss to Minnesota was as much a product of the Gophers’ own legitimate quality and confidence at home as it was the Nittany Lions’ self-inflicted wounds. Even still, they had a chance to win in spite of it.
Penn State’s 2019 season is effectively an ongoing final exam for those who see the glasses as half-full or half-empty. The Nittany Lions have now won 40 of their last 50 games and have stuffed a Big Ten Title and New Years Six bowl appearances in as bookends to otherwise successful campaigns.
Of course those 10 losses tell a different story. They speak of things that nearly happened, great seasons that almost took a step farther into history. Penn State could very well be on a three-game winning streak against Ohio State, but it isn’t. It very well could have won the Rose Bowl, but it didn’t. It could have entered next Saturday’s game undefeated with a chance to punch a ticket to Indianapolis and almost certainly the playoffs in the process, but it won’t.
Despite the imperfections, ultimately a win next Saturday will put Penn State in the driver’s seat for the Big Ten East with no team in the western division posing as large of a threat as the Buckeyes in Indianapolis. Everything the Nittany Lions want to accomplish is still in front of them. The path may require a bit more help across the country, but the functional need for a positive result in Columbus remains unchanged.
There is a reality ahead though, one that suggests Ohio State is the best team in America. In turn this reality embraces a similar truth, that Penn State is good and feisty and talented, but that the Nittany Lions are also struggling on defense and inconsistent on offense even with the now seemingly injured KJ Hamler.
A path is still there, but the truth is coming next Saturday, when Penn State seems on course to suffer a similar fate as every other Buckeye opponent this season.
The question of course is what losing means, and what the response to coming up short ought to be. In 2018 only 25 teams (19%) across every conference in college football finished the year with 10 or more wins. Nearly everyone had the kind of season that makes you shrug with indifference.
Unless something extraordinary happens against Rutgers, Penn State will hit that 10-win mark for the third time in four years and continue to hold its standing as one of the most consistent programs of the past half decade.
This does not absolve James Franklin and his staff of their charge, which currently involves finding ways to win tightly contested, high-profile games. That’s the difference right now between what Penn State is and what it wants to become.
And maybe fans will tire of being better than most but not being entirely elite. That is their right.
But for all the ups and downs, good football and bad football, Penn State has a legitimate shot at another 11-win season under Franklin. And while a game seven days from now might define a season’s destination, it shouldn’t define the entirety of how that season is remembered.
Because in a sport where everyone is coming up short, it’s better to always be knocking on the door than to never even see it.
