Penn State football falls to Notre Dame in CFP semifinal. What impact will that loss have?
Penn State’s national title hopes have been dashed.
The Nittany Lions fell to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 27-24 Thursday night in Hard Rock Stadium in the College Football Playoff semifinal. The season is now over for Penn State, while the Irish will move on to the national title game on Jan. 20.
Here’s what the loss means for the Nittany Lions.
Doubts will again arise about performance in big games
Penn State won two big games in the first two rounds of the College Football Playoff but, for those who move the goalposts on what constitutes a big game, more ammunition has been added to their argument. The Nittany Lions’ path to the semifinal went through the last at-large team in the field in SMU, in addition to a Boise State team that played a weak schedule and didn’t boast many impressive wins.
And when the time came for PSU to face an opponent that was seen as elite, it folded, falling to the Fighting Irish in the biggest game of the James Franklin era. Now those questions will once again arise about where the program stands in the larger landscape of college football and about how good this year’s team actually was.
Uncertain future lies ahead
This team was Penn State’s best chance to win a national title with an elite defense and a Heisman Trophy candidate on offense in tight end Tyler Warren. Now, Warren will depart, and defensive end Abdul Carter is highly likely to follow, leaving questions about whether the 2025 iteration of the team will be able to reach this level.
Quarterback Drew Allar publicly stated his intent to return, and there will surely be other Nittany Lions who run it back, but it’s fair to question whether those returning players and internal growth are enough for Penn State to go on an even deeper run next season. There’s a real possibility that this will go down as a golden opportunity that Penn State missed.
Franklin misses out on chance at history
Franklin has mentioned his desire to be the first Black head coach to win the national title, but will now have to wait another year to try and make history — and could lose that opportunity all together if Notre Dame wins it all. He and Marcus Freeman were competing to become the first Black head coach in a national title game, and now the latter has earned that honor.
Freeman and Notre Dame will take on the winner of the Cotton Bowl between Ohio State and Texas, and a win in that game for the Fighting Irish means he’d be the first Black head coach to win a national title. And Franklin will fall just shy of making the history he’s been chasing since becoming a head coach.
This story was originally published January 9, 2025 at 11:16 PM.
