Another year, another time the lights have been seemingly too bright for the Penn State Nittany Lions. Penn State led the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 10-3 at the end of the half and had a lot of momentum even though the Irish got a late field goal to close out the half.
Then Penn State flat-lined and Notre Dame was able to get things all tied up going into the fourth. With neither side winning the momentum battle. The 4th quarter was bound to be a show and a show it was. 31 total points were scored in the 4th, with 17 coming from the Irish, and only 14 from the Lions.
The Irish scored late with 4 minutes left on the clock to tie things up. All Penn State had to do was control the clock, go down, and kick the field goal. They punted and stopped Notre Dame from getting the ball back, surely they would win it this time. Then on the first set of downs Penn State receives, quarterback Drew Allar throws a terrible – seemingly irresponsible – pass that gets picked off to give the Irish a chance to win in regulation.
Notre Dame marched down the field kicking the game-winning field goal as time would expire giving the Irish a ticket to the championship, but that’s enough about Notre Dame.
Since 2003 Penn State has only won 20-38 matchups against ranked opponents. Now of course this doesn’t take into account how good their ranked opponents were, but it goes to show that they struggle against great teams.
Penn State has been on a national championship drought since 1986, which means they have not won the big game in about 38 seasons. Penn State has had loaded rosters and insane NFL talent come through their school over these past few years, but they don’t have much to show for it. Just to name a few current players who attended: 2000-yard rusher Saquan Barkley and 1x DPOY Micah Parsons. Parson was actually on the sidelines for this years Orange Bowl supporting his former team.
Penn State has a couple of Bowl wins, but when your program is looked as highly upon as it is by so many, you need more to show for it. Penn State had not made the 4 team playoff bracket since this playoff format was created. They do however have 4 Big 10 championships with their most recent coming in 2016; which is impressive.
With that being said, will Penn State finally ever get over the hump they are now climbing, or will they stay known as the team that will never win a big game? Is the answer to their problems moving on from coach James Franklin, or is this problem even deeper than coaching?
