There was always a path. At the start of the year, it was nearly inconceivable. By the end of the regular season, it was somewhat favorable. Regardless of how it was perceived, there was always a path for Penn State to reach the national championship. The Nittany Lions are just a win away. They’ll face Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff semifinal next Thursday.
Penn State battled through winter weather to claim a 38-10 victory over SMU in the opening round. Then it traveled to Arizona, where it completed a 31-14 win over Boise State and Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty in the Fiesta Bowl on Tuesday. Blue and white confetti rained on the Nittany Lions, who celebrated in the locker room with cigars, knowing that the title game was just 1-0 away.
But now comes James Franklin’s toughest task of his playoff debut. He’ll have to, once and for all, overcome his big-game slump and defeat a Fighting Irish team that convincingly defeated SEC champion Georgia, 23-10, on Thursday. A win in the Orange Bowl could set Franklin up for a rematch with the conference foe he’s struggled most against over his 11-year Penn State tenure.
Here’s an updated look at the Nittany Lions’ path to a national championship. Spoiler: it’s getting real.
The Orange Bowl
Everything rests on this one game. The “1-0 mentality” that Franklin’s instilled within his program has never mattered more. Win and Penn State is in. Lose and it’s back to the drawing board. The opportunity has never been greater for Franklin and a Penn State program that hasn’t won a title since 1986.
But Notre Dame is no slouch. It possesses one of the nation’s top rushing attacks behind an offensive line that’s about as sturdy as they come. On defense, it gets even trickier. The defensive line is legit, though banged up, the linebackers are elite and the secondary has a knack for forcing turnovers. This is a really, really good football team.
Penn State, however, has the tools to get the job done. Franklin’s defense is just about as good as Marcus Freeman’s. And offensively, the Nittany Lions have playmakers in tight end Tyler Warren, quarterback Drew Allar and running backs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen that the Fighting Irish have hardly seen anything like in 2024.
It’s a fantastic matchup between two storied programs that have each fallen just short in the College Football Playoff era. Buckle up.
The Cotton Bowl
Franklin was booed off the field after Penn State’s 20-13 loss to Ohio State on Nov. 2. It was his eighth-consecutive defeat to a Buckeye team that had beaten his program in almost identical fashion a year prior. Oh, so close — again. But Franklin and his players understood that a 12-team College Football Playoff meant novel circumstances and opportunities.
A national championship wasn’t ruled out. Neither was the possibility for a rematch with the Buckeyes. Ohio State has joined the Nittany Lions as one of the four teams remaining. After a dominating 41-21 win over Oregon on Wednesday, Ryan Day and his team will face Texas in the Cotton Bowl on Friday, Jan. 10. With a win, they’ll face either Penn State or Notre Dame in the final on Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
It couldn’t be scripted any better.
“We definitely, hopefully get another chance to see those guys again and make things different,” linebacker Kobe King said after falling to the Buckeyes in November. “To go where we want to go, we have to do everything right, get better every day and learn from our mistakes in the past. We want to play them again.”
