Beaver Stadium will once again be in the national spotlight this week, when the Nittany Lions host their first playoff game. Abdul Carter and Tyler Warren and Drew Allar and Nick Singleton will all attract that figurative spotlight as well, though probably not to the extent that the man who leads them will command it.

It’s yet another big game for James Franklin, who has not exactly risen to the challenge in, well, almost any of the big games he’s seen at Penn State.

It’s really the only major knock on an 11-year coaching stint that has otherwise been sparkling, even when graded on a sanctions curve. Franklin recruits at a high level. He gets his players to the NFL. He beats the teams he is supposed to beat (read that sentence again, and file it away for just a bit later), and often by several touchdowns. He understands and protects the value of the Penn State brand, and he has spent a decade behind the scenes beating down doors and slashing through red tape to bring his program up to par from a resource standpoint.

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This playoff stuff is crazy, man.

For the second time in two months, Penn State lost its game of the season … and yet it still has a chance to play for the national championship.

For the second time in two months, the Nittany Lions looked like they belonged on the biggest stage of the college game and had a few tantalizing moments where victory was allllllmost in their grasp. And for the second time in two months, they made enough mistakes to watch a signature win slip through their fingers.

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I understand the desire of fans in northern climates to see overhyped SEC teams play in cold-weather playoff games. I do. But the thing about really, really cold weather is that it usually makes for bad football.

After it took advantage of a gift from its (tongue nailed to the side of cheek) old pal Michigan on Saturday, Penn State, against not all but many odds, will get to avoid the cold for at least one more game.

The Nittany Lions had a little trouble with ball security in their 44-7 pasting of Maryland in frosty Beaver Stadium. Nick Singleton fumbled on the first play of the game. Kaytron Allen had a bobbled snap not long after. Even the sticky-handed Tyler Warren dropped a pass. And, well, that’s what happens in cold weather. The hands get numb. The football gets slick. The arms and legs move fractionally slower.

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It ended in, at least in the stat sheet, what appeared to be an obvious way — yet another pass completion from Drew Allar to Tyler Warren. A simple pitch and catch.

But nothing, not even that fourth-down toss, was simple in Penn State’s 26-25 win at Minnesota. With this town and this team, nothing ever is.

Saturday marked just the 17^th time in 32 Big Ten seasons that the Nittany Lions met the Golden Gophers on a football field, and though the Lions had won 10 of the previous 16 meetings, there had been a disproportionate number of concerning Gopher bites they had sustained from a team that hasn’t made much noise in the conference since the 1960s.

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There was a moment in Saturday’s smackdown of Purdue that nicely illustrated both the problem for defenses that must play Penn State and the reason the Nittany Lions, after a 49-10 win that was every bit the blowout it was expected to be, have ascended to the top five and, perhaps in a way they didn’t in the first half of the season, truly look like a top five program.

Nick Singleton had just plowed into the end zone and was celebrating with his teammates. First Anthony Donkoh, with the Dirty Dancing lift. Then Drew Allar, with a practiced handshake and a quick nod. And then Singleton got props from the star of the day (and of the season, really): a short, almost businesslike acknowledgement from Tyler Warren. It was two lions nodding at one another over a big kill, two alphas understanding the moment for what it was but also that it was only a small part of their shared goal of ruling the entire jungle.

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For the second straight week, Penn State faced an important test. This one was of a much different nature than the test it ultimately failed in last week’s loss to Ohio State.

The danger was that the soul-crushing defeat would linger, that the Nittany Lions would lose confidence and focus and that they would have to work harder than they should to beat another inferior team, that they would look different than the flawed but forceful group that was deserving of its top-10 ranking, a team that’s been pretty damned consistent all year, even if consistently imperfect.

Instead, a better team showed up.

It only stuck around for a half, though.

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The easy column, the prudent column, would be to detail another agonizing loss by Penn State at the hands of its most hated rival and then, at the end, say that this year, it doesn’t really matter in the big picture because the path to the playoff is still clear.

(Dr. Evil voice) Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

This loss, agonizing in its own unique way even in a series of agonizing losses, matters very much because it represents the ceiling for the program under James Franklin. The wins, the recruiting rankings, the semi-consistent visits to the top 10, the massive White Outs—all important. All hard-earned. So too are the overdue facility upgrades and the about-face a school that liked to think it was above paying players did on the NIL front.

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The scene in Camp Randall, as halftime approached with Penn State trailing Wisconsin by three, went from “Oh, well” to “Oh, (choose your own four-letter expletive)” in a matter of seconds.

The Nittany Lions had been riding that edge they’d been riding for most of the USC game, where they weren’t quite sharp but they weren’t in serious danger, a Ferrari with a sticky second gear. The second half, where the team had done most of its damage this year, awaited.

And then Drew Allar limped off the field.

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As far as bye weeks are concerned, Penn State’s second idle date of the season came at a pretty good time from the standpoint that the Nittany Lions are immune from the overrated dreaded trap game that often follows a big road win; if you don’t play, you can’t fall into that trap. And their next game, a night kick in Camp Randall Stadium, should be more than enough to bring out their full effort and focus.

However, in the wake of the overtime defeat of USC, some bigger challenges than a trap game might lurk ahead, and only some of them have to do with the opponents.

As of this writing, Penn State is ranked third in the nation in both the AP and Coaches polls. Its playoff chances this week were plus-95 percent according to one predictive model. A program that has struggled to get inside the velvet rope and hang with the true elites of college football for the past few seasons is not only inside the rope but has a prime seat at the bar, and the back pats and highballs are coming from all directions.

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There was a feeling in this one, for most of the first half and a few parts of the second, that the chickens had again come home to roost. Or at least been packed in the luggage compartment for the flight from—ahem—Harrisburg.

Penn State was, once again, crapping the figurative bed against a marquee opponent on a marquee stage after weeks of gobbling up cupcakes. USC looked faster, sharper, better-coached, and more ready for the moment, even if the talent discrepancy between the teams was almost invisible. No, this wasn’t a game against Ohio State or Michigan but it was a game against a dangerous and desperate group led by a coach who knows a thing or two about scoring points. It was 20-6 at halftime but it felt like it could have been worse as easily as it could have been better, and the Nittany Lions knew they had to battle the southern California heat as well as a team that was gaining confidence with each drive after some disappointments of its own the last few weeks.

Instead of letting the moment take them, though, as they had so many times the last few seasons, this group of Nittany Lions took the moment and held on, emerging with an overtime win that maintained the trajectory of the season and arguably changed the direction of the program.

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