Some might glean I'm an eternal optimist, so I definitely believe they will win it all. I never thought for a minute that Allar, Singelton and Allen would come back. That solidified it for me.
Shalom
Shalom
Does Penn State Football finally get its National Championship this upcoming season?
- Thread starter Mr. Potter
- Start date
I hope so. There are probably enough PSU shirts in Africa.
College Football Playoff prediction sees Penn State in national championship
College Football Playoff prediction sees Penn State in national championship
Finally, Didn't PSU win a Natty in 1982 and 1986?
As good a chance as anyone to be honest. Big early test with Oregon will be very informative.
It's a long way off- injuries, good or bad calls, a lucky break or a bad one, and a lot of other good teams trying to win- who the hell knows?
If we win a NATTY.
by going undefeated with an average margin of victory of 45 points, then why the hell wasn’t it 46? 50? 60? The points are there for the taking. And why the f*ck would we give up points? For f*ck’s sake.
And why did we lose that game 3 or 4 years ago to Illinois? A natty won't excuse the backup QBs performance at Iowa.If we win a NATTY.
OK, but as long as you're not talking trade.Franklin to the White House.
Have a legit shot. Have to replace Warren production, need a WR who can play at this level, and Drew has to get better. Oline should be great, we should be able to run on anyone, and our coordinator is back for another year. Defense seems to reload but another defensive coordinator change is a bit of a pain. Still thin at LB.
unless something goes apocalyptic this team should make the playoffs and be poised for a deep run. Osu isn't going anywhere and neither is media darling Texas or ND. Some traditional power will likely also come back from the dead: Michigan, Clemson, Miami, LSU. James is probably going to have to beat at least two high profile programs who are at or over our overall talent level if he wants to win it all. That hasn’t been our speciality during the Franklin era.
unless something goes apocalyptic this team should make the playoffs and be poised for a deep run. Osu isn't going anywhere and neither is media darling Texas or ND. Some traditional power will likely also come back from the dead: Michigan, Clemson, Miami, LSU. James is probably going to have to beat at least two high profile programs who are at or over our overall talent level if he wants to win it all. That hasn’t been our speciality during the Franklin era.
I don’t see it happening. Hope I’m wrong and will gladly admit it if it happens.
My top three concerns:
1) WR situation
2) New defensive scheme. Everywhere Knowles has been it has taken 2-3 yrs for his scheme to peak and this team doesn't have that window. After 2025, there will be more major talent moving on.
3) Proven LBer depth is lacking
It is highly likely that the stock market will be up by the end of the year--more than 75% probability. Penn State has a meaningful chance to win a National Championship, but that chance is realistically about 10%.
Yes they do. Have to wait 365 days though. dang it, for psu wrestling to do it again!!
So what you’re saying is that Penn State needs to impose tariffs to improve its chances. I’m with you.
If this team is what we think it is, then Nevada, FIU, Villanova, UCLA, Northwestern, Indiana, MSU, Nebraska, and Rutgers should all be wins (9). I'm not completely writing off Nebraska or MSU, but those should be wins.
We only play 5 road games and only two of them are in bad environments. @UCLA, @Iowa, @OSU, @msu, and @Rutgers. There is a bye week between Iowa and OSU (OSU has a bye that week as well), so the "got caught looking ahead" argument shouldn't exist. We out talent @Iowa and our guys have now played in enough high stakes road environments from last season that they should handle it well. We should walk out with a win.
OSU, on the road, is a loss until this program proves it can beat them consistently.
I think the season comes down to Oregon and Iowa games. Need to win one of those, ideally both so that the OSU game is rendered less impactful and we are not sitting at 10-2 with some SEC/ND/"Cinderella wannabe" team jumping us at #11 or 12. Oregon plays an extra game before they play us (Montana St.) and they play arguably 3 better teams (Oklahoma St, Northwestern, and Oregon State) than our first games (Nevada, FIU, and Villanova). We get them at home. I like our chances at home, though I wish we could play a better opponent beforehand to get ready for the significant talent change.
On paper in April of 2025, the team should be somewhere between a 10-2 and a 11-1 record. That should get you into the playoffs.
Injuries are a sad reality of football. They never impact records calculated on paper.
A more entertaining off season discussion might be....what will the record be if Allar is out for the season....then fill in another name etc.
I'm not too concerned about #2 or #3, but #1 is a massive, massive issue (on paper) heading into the season. Without Warren and with the WR production we've seen for the last 2 years we will not win a natty, unless something changes with that position group.
Up from where it is now, or from where it was at the beginning of 2025? If the latter, we can forget it. And given current circumstances, the 75% probability is optimistic.
Not many. Gotta give Coach Franklin his props. He’s done some great hard work to get PSU here. Didn’t really see the reasons behind some of the things he was doing until recently. He modernized the program. It wasn’t easy.
"OSU, on the road, is a loss until this program proves it can beat them
"... and we are not sitting at 10-2 with some SEC/ND/"Cinderella wannabe" team jumping us.."
That's a huge deal. As of now, the sweet spot in the playoffs is positions 5-8 that will get you a home game against a lesser-ranked opponent. A 9-12 ranking puts you on the road, probably against a "better" team. I don't ever want to open the playoffs on the road against an SEC team.
A 1-4 ranking sounds nice, but it gets you a neutral site game against a team that will have already won their first playoff game.
Give me that opening round home game every time.
I agree with you that positions 5-8 are the most favorable under the current system. I really think they need to move to either an 8-team playoff (won't happen) or a 16-team playoff with no byes. I had heard talk of going to a 14-team playoff, with 2 teams having byes, which I also think is a mistake.
The reason that byes are helpful in the NFL is because teams play in consecutive weeks during the playoffs. In CFB, there is a 10-14 day break between the first and second round of the playoffs, and an even longer break between the end of the regular season/conference championship weekend and the second round of the playoffs. They really need to eliminate having the Army-Navy game on its own weekend. Either put that game as the only game on week 0 to start the season, or have it be the lead-in game to the first week of the playoffs.