What's being said about Penn State being No. 6 in the first CFP top 25?: Newsstand
Penn State news, notes, and updates for Nov. 6 include reaction to the first College Football Playoff top 25 rankings, headlines of the day, and more. It’s time to dive into Wednesday’s top tweets and headlines about the Nittany Lions and college athletics.
Penn State tweets of the day
We start with the initial set of rankings from the College Football Playoff selection committee. There are not a ton of qualms with the initial list. Many think Indiana and BYU are too low at Nos. 8 and 9, respectively. Some think Penn State is too high at No. 6. But, by and large, most accept that things will play themselves out over the final four weeks of the regular season plus conference championship weekend. If the season ended today, which it obviously does not, the Lions would earn the seven seed (seed and ranking do not have to align due to rules governing the first four seeds going to conference champions regardless of ranking in addition to the highest-ranked Group of Five team getting in) and host No. 10 Notre Dame.
On3 national columnist Ari Wasserman asked, however, if the Lions are ranked ahead of the Hoosiers and SMU because of their logo only.
“The thing that’s frustrating, though, is that with the information we have, there is no clear or identifiable reason why we’re propping Penn State up over SMU and Indiana other than its logo,” Wasserman writes. “Are we 100 percent sure that Penn State would beat SMU and Indiana? I’m definitely not. I’m not even sure Penn State would be favored if it played Indiana tomorrow.
“You may not think these rankings matter. You may be right when we have all the data points at the end of the season. But both Indiana and SMU could find themselves in head-to-head debates with attractive two-loss teams later in the process, and starting points matter. The committee is telling us what they think of these teams right now. And it seems like they’re thinking about it wrong.”
Top 10
- 1Hot
CFP Top 25
First College Football Playoff rankings
- 2
NIL concerns
Mark Stoops says player would 'give the money back'
- 3
Heisman campaign
Travis Hunter makes case to lift Heisman Trophy
- 4
CFP bracket
12-team bracket after first CFP Top 25
- 5
PSU over Tennessee
CFP chairman explains decision
See some more reactions below:
Headlines of the day
Washington’s Jedd Fisch on the Penn State White Out experience: ‘It’s going to be a blast for our guys’: Flounders, PennLive
Penn State football plows ahead with past pitfalls looming: Bauer, BWI
Penn State Looks for Bigger Plays From Receivers in Big Ten Play: Mader, SI
Who are the impact players in Penn State’s group of January enrollees on offense?: Fitz, BWI
Dom DeLuca nominated for Burlsworth Trophy: Alenstein, Daily Collegian
Why is Penn State No. 6 in the first College Football Playoff rankings? Lions ‘body of work’ played a role: Pickel, BWI
Quote of the day
“Penn State lost to the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes. It was a game that went back and forth, and obviously a game that could have gone the other way. It was back and forth. And so, they have wins over Illinois, and Southern Cal in overtime, opening [season] win at West Virginia, which is difficult to play. So, we look at their body of work; Tennessee has an impressive win over Alabama at No. 11 and wins over North Carolina State and Oklahoma, [and are] 4-1 against teams over .500. The loss at Arkansas was something that we discussed a lot.
And so, looking at the resume, looking at what we’ve seen, the offensive performance [from Penn State], their tight end, Tyler Warren, is a dominating force on offense. And so, I just think Penn State, in terms of their body of work, and what the committee saw in terms of their body of work, that came to the ranking of Penn State at six and Tennessee at seven.”
–CFP selection committee chair Warde Manuel on why PSU is at No. 6.
