How could the Big Ten title game result impact Penn State's College Football Playoff seeding?

Penn State is No. 3 in the penultimate College Football Playoff rankings. Those came out on Tuesday night ahead of Saturday’s Big Ten title game showdown with No. 1 Oregon. The winner of the game will earn a first round bye in the inaugural 12-team field. Where will the loser end up? Well, that depends on a number of things, starting with the outcomes in Indianapolis and elsewhere.

The Ducks are unbeaten. Even if they lose to the Lions, it would take either a major injury or shocking result to move them any lower than No. 5 and at the head of the line of the one-loss teams who do not get a bye, in all likelihood. If they win, they will continue to be the No. 1 seed as they’ve been for weeks. For Oregon, their outlook seems to be clear. Penn State’s, of course, is not.

If the Nittany Lions win as a current 3.5-point underdog, they will be a top-four seed. But will they move to No. 1? That is not a certainty. If they lose, they will drop out of the top four. But, there’s no guarantee they will automatically slot into the No. 5 spot, either.

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Independent Notre Dame could end up there. It cannot earn a top-four seed as part of the 12-team Playoff agreement. It is No. 4 in the latest CFP rankings but No. 6 in the current bracket projections. Penn State is No. 5, assuming it loses to Oregon. But, the door was left open Tuesday night by CFP selection committee chair Warde Manuel, the Michigan athletic director, to move teams playing this weekend to any spot the committee feels is justified, even if they are playing an extra game.

Tennessee and Indiana, who are not playing this weekend, and ACC title game participant SMU were used as examples for how this could all play out. The No. 7 Vols and No. 9 Hoosiers do not play. The Mustangs are ranked No. 8 and playing No. 17 Clemson.

“If you take, for example, Tennessee is ahead of SMU, Indiana is behind SMU; Tennessee will not drop below Indiana at any point,” Warde Manuel said. “Neither team is playing.

“But SMU could move up, depending on how we evaluate the game. They could stay where they are or they could move down depending on the outcome of the game. But Tennessee and Indiana, in this example, would never flip. Indiana would never move ahead of Tennessee and Tennessee would never drop below Indiana because we’ve already evaluated them. There’s not another data point because they’re not playing in the championship games. So we don’t have anything else to add to the evaluation of those teams, so we can’t move them above or below each other.”

In other words, the teams who aren’t playing are frozen in their current order, though their seeds/ranking if they are outside of the top 12 could move if teams in conference title games drop below or move above them. But, their order isn’t changing.

Thus, No. 6 Ohio State is not jumping No. 4 Notre Dame. But, will Penn State fall below the Fighting Irish, or even the Buckeyes, in the final rankings and thus bracket if it loses? It will have to be blown out to do so, from our point of view. But has the door been left open for anything to be possible with a loss? It has ahead of conference championship weekend. Penn State will almost certainly host a College Football Playoff game. But its seed is hardly locked in if it loses ahead of Saturday, despite it being one of a select few playing for a conference crown.

Thus, as James Franklin always says, he and the Lions can only control what they can control: Winning at Lucas Oil Stadium and earning a bye in the process.