Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1539550
6 6 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 5 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M F or fans who spent the offseason bemoaning Penn State's noncon- ference schedule, which included two Group of Five teams and an FCS foe, you can breathe a sigh of relief: It's over. Now it's time for the Nittany Lions to figure out whether or not it worked. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, this year's nonleague slate is hard to defend. But the reality is simple: That does not matter. All that does matter is whether or not the contests, which amounted to preseason NFL tune-up games, did enough to prepare head coach James Franklin's team for what could end up being a top-five meeting with Dan Lanning's Oregon Ducks in a rematch of last year's thrilling Big Ten title clash. If Penn State leaves the White Out with a win, few will care who they played in the season's first four weeks, which also included a bye week. If not? Well, all that griping from the summer is going to return. And it will surely be louder than it was then. Franklin, who is in his 12th season at the helm of the program, has recently started reminding fans and media members alike that there was supposed to be a Power Five foe among this year's nonconference opponents. Penn State agreed to play a home-and-home se- ries with Virginia Tech in 2015. The first of those games was supposed to be in Blacksburg in 2020 before the Hok- ies trekked north to Beaver Stadium in 2025. COVID led to the cancellation of the initial date, and Virginia Tech wisely pulled out of the series alto- gether after its half of the home-and- home was scuttled. Penn State announced in 2021 that Nevada would be one of this year's out- of-conference opponents, and Florida International was added to the sched- ule in March 2024. It's unclear which of those two foes was replacing the Hok- ies, but it doesn't matter. The Lions did have a chance about a year and a half ago to add a better opponent to the 2025 slate but declined to do so, bear- ing in mind the burdens of a nine-game conference slate and a lengthened sea- son due to the expansion of the College Football Playoff. A quick aside: While Bill Connelly's SP+ metrics for ESPN are not a be-all, end-all, it's still worth noting that, ac- cording to that measure, Virginia Tech is not that much better than Nevada and FIU. The Hokies wouldn't neces- sarily have been the test Penn State may or may not have needed prior to its meeting with the Ducks. For those wondering, Marshall, Temple and Buffalo are lined up on next year's nonconference slate, and the 2027 schedule features the Owls again, along with Syracuse and Delaware. In 2028, Ball State and Massa- chusetts will join the Orange on PSU's slate. In the meantime, the way this year's nonconference schedule will be viewed by fans and media is straightforward. If the Nittany Lions beat Oregon, no one will care much about the occasional struggles the team endured in the early going. But if they lose to the Ducks, the schedule will be questioned ad nauseam. Whether it hurts them in the eyes of the College Football Playoff selection committee is a separate question, one that Franklin addressed at Big Ten Media Days in July. "We were sold in the Big Ten all those years where we went to nine games, that strength of schedule was going to deter- mine the teams that got into the four-team playoff," he said. "That never played out to be the case. Scheduling nonconference games late in the year, which some- times could almost be like a bye week late in the season — all these things are strategies. You have to decide what puts your institution, your pro- gram, in the best position to be suc- cessful. "The good thing is, the way it's set up right now, we all have the choice to do that. And all the criticisms that come in either direction, they're great for conversations and they're great for people getting angry and upset. But I'm not angry. I'm excited. I'm happy about our schedule [and] the opportu- nities that we have." We'll soon know whether others are fully satisfied with the aforementioned opportunities or are on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. ■ O P I N I O N GREG PICKEL GREG.PICKEL@ON3.COM The Nonconference Slate Is Over, But Questions Linger THE LAST WORD James Franklin said that when assembling their schedules, coaches have to "decide what puts your institution, your program, in the best position to be successful." PHOTO BY MARK SELDERS/PENN STATE ATHLETICS