D'Oh! The "Nit"-Wits Drop One in the Land of Hawkeyes
A national BCS championship run for the Penn State Nittany Lions and 150 year old Joe Paterno, right there on the tips of their fingers and their own destiny to squander away—and they did.
Saturday in Iowa City, the Hawkeyes and their backup kicker took an undefeated Penn State football team and their dream of playing for a national title and crushed it like sand between their fingers.
This loss could easily drop the Nittany Lions somewhere between seventh and 10th—good luck crawling back up that board when you have Michigan State and Indiana left to play.
Look who this also puts right back into the thick of things—USC, Texas, and Oklahoma are slowly crawling back up. Texas had a big win, while Oklahoma had a fairly simple 66-point performance. Florida will beat Vandy tonight and that leaves it with Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks, The Citadel (what a joke that game will be), and the season finale against Florida State.
I now think Oklahoma has the best shot to get into the championship game because its last two games are against top 10-ranked opponents, being Texas Tech next week and Oklahoma State the week following.
As you can see stacking up the schedules next to each other, all Oklahoma has to do is win its next two games and it is in. It would've been a much harder argument if Penn State had won this game, which the Lions should have easily, but they did not take care of business.
In the college football realm of things, I hear people wanting to do away with the BCS ranking system and have a playoff, including President-elect Barack Obama. But think about this: Every week is a playoff game.
This week for the Nittany Lions was a playoff game. Win or go home. They lost, they are going home, and they will now have to settle for below a top five ranking for the rest of the season. The best hope the Lions now have is that the Michigan State team keeps its No. 18 ranking past Sunday and, when they play the Spartans, the Lions actually win. Only then will they have a shot at jumping back up the rankings board to get a look at the title.
Congrats to the Hawkeyes on being 6-4 instead of 5-5. It looks better to be over .500 instead of just at it. Nittany Lions, regain your focus and play Nittany Lions football.
You lost this one because of poor quarterback play. Clark needs to do better than 39 percent completions, zero touchdowns, one interception, and only 86 yards if PSU is still going to be a legitimate threat at all.
