Three takeaways from Penn State football’s 45-37 loss to Oregon for Big Ten championship
Penn State was unable to win its first conference championship since 2016, falling to the Oregon Ducks in Indianapolis on Saturday night, 45-37.
Here are three takeaways from the Big Ten championship game:
Penn State defense falters at the worst time
The PSU defense has carried the team this year, but with a conference title on the line, it no-showed. Oregon has one of the best offenses in the country, but the Nittany Lion defense is supposed to be elite, too. And on Saturday it looked like a vastly inferior group compared to the one that took the field all season. For context, Saturday was the most points the Nittany Lions allowed in a single game since the 52-49 loss to USC in the 2017 Rose Bowl.
Defenders were missing tackles, missing assignments and leaving Oregon’s best players with too much space to work. This has been a group that has bent, but not broken, all season and the Ducks gashed them over and over and over again. The bright side for the Nittany Lions is that the Ducks are better than most other teams on that side of the ball; the bad news is the ones that are on that level are also going to be in the playoff.
Passive offensive play-calling dooms Penn State
Penn State’s offense played as well as it has all season and did it against the best defense it’s faced, but in the moments that mattered most it was called to the sideline. The Nittany Lions had two chances to go for it on fourth down and give themselves a chance in the third quarter, but instead they chose to kick the ball to the best offense they’ve faced all season or to try a field goal.
The field goal attempt, with 9:30 left in the third quarter on fourth-and-5 from the 23-yard-line, helped decide the outcome. That’s because head coach James Franklin’s decision to “take the points” led to his team coming away with a goose egg on the drive after Ryan Barker missed the 40-yard field goal attempt. The Nittany Lions needed to keep pace with the Ducks, who were seemingly scoring at will. And instead chose to willingly give the ball back to them.
Nittany Lions await their playoff fate
Penn State’s first-round matchup is in flux, but it will have that opening-round matchup — and not a bye — now that it didn’t win the conference title. It’s all but a lock that the game will be in Beaver Stadium unless the College Football Playoff selection committee completely changes its opinion on PSU. Now it’s just a matter of determining what the team’s path will be.
There are teams the Nittany Lions will want to avoid — such as Ohio State — and if they can, there will be an opportunity to win some games in the first and second round to get to the semifinals. But winning four straight games against some of the best teams in the country is a tall task, and one the Nittany Lions have to deal with after falling to the Ducks.
This story was originally published December 7, 2024 at 11:48 PM.
