Sunday Column: Bye week Forces Us To Wait To See if the Nittany Lions Have Truly Leveled Up

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.

It is, however, only halfway through the season, and not only does Penn State have plenty of work left to do before the playoffs actually arrive, but it must move forward trying to adjust to the new role of hunted rather than hunter.

Suddenly, the appearance of the Lions on opponents’ schedules means opportunities for field-storming. Knocking off a top-five opponent can be a career changer for a coach or seismic shifter for a program. Penn State will have the full attention, plus a little added motivation, of the mediocre and dangerous teams on the schedule alike.

For all the grief he’s taken about coming up short in the big ones (much of it deserved), James Franklin has done a better job than just about anyone of beating the teams Penn State should beat. But, again, doing that when there’s a target on your back, when the internal and external expectations are nothing short of perfection, is a different animal. Coaches hate it when players start to “read their press clippings” and feel too good about themselves when they haven’t really earned it yet, but this particular team—maybe even including the coaching staff—needs to thump their collective chest a bit.

The good news is, for much of the year, this team has looked the part of a top-five squad. Andy Kotelnicki has unlocked Drew Allar, who is adding words like “clutch” and “resilient” to a resume that already included words like “can throw the hell out of the ball.” Abdul Carter is coming on, and bringing the rest of the defensive line along with him. The secondary has done a nice job of weathering the loss of KJ Winston. Tyler Warren has transformed from a great backup tight end into Football Jesus. Hell, Penn State can successfully kick field goals now!

However, the qualities that signaled minor alarm bells against the weaker parts of the schedule and nearly made the visit to southern California a disaster remain. Penn State continues to start games with all the urgency and crispness of an aging, overweight bulldog. A defense that has showed more flashes of its dominant 2023 form has nonetheless allowed a stunning number of chunk plays, several on third down and long. A running game that looked like it was capable of hanging 200 yards on everyone has been stuck in mud during the last couple of games. And the wide receiving corps, which will continue to get more opportunities due to the creativity of Kotelnicki and the extra attention Warren will surely command, has improved but probably doesn’t yet qualify as a true strength. That the Lions have been able to cruise to wins against overmatched opponents and scratch them out against talented ones, er, one, despite these issues is a credit to their mental toughness and intangibles, but the margins will get thinner across the board as the weather gets colder and the stakes get higher.

Speaking of margins, the win over USC did two important things: One, it raised the collective confidence of a group that might not have needed it but certainly now has it, and two, took arguably the team’s second-highest chance of a loss off the board. The trips to Madison and Minneapolis will not be cakewalks, but the reality is that Penn State could fall to Ohio State at home and still make a playoff with ease, perhaps even host a game. While that should still be the biggest game of the year for the Nittany Lions (and quite possibly one of the biggest in all of college football), it won’t have the same all-or-nothing feel to it as that matchup in past seasons because of the expanded playoff and the work that Penn State has done to this point (not to mention the lack of a Harbaugh-led Michigan team on the schedule).

To me, though, how the Nittany Lions slide into the new clothes of the “it” team is more interesting than how they match up with any of the remaining opponents. The next month and a half will show if the win over the Trojans was just a good, tough, well-earned win or a true steppingstone for a program that just hasn’t been able to break through what has been a fairly resistant ceiling.

The Lions will, as always, use this bye week to watch some tape and heal some bumps and bruises and tighten up their tackling. If they can also use it to embrace the heightened expectations as a privilege rather than a burden, the second half of 2024 could be a whole lot of fun.