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| Photo creds to Si.Com |
For the Penn State Nittany Lions, the 2017 college football season has been neither an overwhelming success nor a colossal failure.
As it prepares for its seventh Fiesta Bowl appearance Saturday afternoon against the Washington Huskies, it's indisputable that Penn State has had a good, solid year. The Lions ended their regular season at 10-2 and ranked ninth in the country. That is something to be proud of, especially considering that both of Penn State's losses came against ranked opponents on the road, and were by a combined total of just four points. For as much success as the Nittany Lions have had, however, it still feels like this team left a lot on the table. As of now, I think it's fair to describe 2017 as a year of near misses.
Penn State entered this season with most of the key pieces of the 2016 Big Ten champions returning to Happy Valley. So while a College Football Playoff berth wasn't necessarily the expectation coming in, it was far from an unrealistic objective. The Nittany Lions nearly accomplished that goal but failed their two biggest tests of the season, losing at Ohio State and Michigan State in consecutive weeks. Winning just one of those games- along with the Big Ten championship- would have almost surely gotten Penn State into the playoffs. But it wasn't to be.
Collectively, Penn State failed to reach the mountaintop of winning a national championship. Individually, junior running back Saquon Barkley couldn't bring home the most significant honor in college sports. Barkley was a preseason Heisman favorite and for the first half of the year, looked to be running away with the trophy. But as Penn State's playoff dreams faded, so did Barkley's Heisman hopes, and number 26 didn't even get invited to New York as a finalist for the award. Saturday will likely be Barkley's last game for the Blue and White, and it's a chance for him to end his Penn State career on a high note with a dominant performance.
Besides not reaching the playoffs or repeating as Big Ten champions, of Penn State's ten wins, not many were eye-opening. The Nittany Lions beat rival Pitt. Whoopie. The Panthers ended up going 5-7. Penn State fans will remember the last-second thriller in Iowa City for years to come. Awesome. But considering that the Lions were two-touchdown favorites over Iowa, forgive me for classifying that as a game they were supposed to win, and should have won by more than two points. Watching the Blue and White pound Jim Harbaugh and Michigan in front of a record-setting Beaver Stadium crowd was fabulous. But the "team up north" ain't what it used to be. Unlike 2016, this year's Penn State squad failed to win a game it wasn't supposed to. While a win in the Fiesta Bowl wouldn't necessarily change that- Penn State is favored by two- it would be, far and away, Penn State's most impressive win of 2017.
For Penn State, beating Washington wouldn't qualify as a signature triumph. The Lions are ranked ahead of the Huskies. But aside from Ohio State, Washington is the best team Penn State has faced all year and is similar to the Nittany Lions in multiple areas. Both schools were Power Five conference champions last year and finished 2016 ranked in the top ten. Both brought a lot of talent back from a year ago, particularly on offense, and thus, were thought to be playoff contenders before this season, and both failed to repeat as conference champs due to two close road losses, with the Huskies losing at Arizona State and Stanford by a combined 14 points. If Penn State beats Washington, it would give the Nittany Lions a win over a top 15 team, which they haven't had in 2017, as well as a former "BCS" bowl triumph, which the Nittany Lions haven't accomplished since 2006.
I've said in the past that bowl games are glorified exhibitions, and I think that's true in a lot of cases. But I also believe that the end of one season sets a tone for the next year and beyond. The Nittany Lions look to have a lot of talent coming back for 2018, in addition to an elite recruiting class, so the future of Penn State football is bright regardless of what happens Saturday. But a win in the Fiesta Bowl would leave Nittany Nation feeling a lot better about the present, as well as the future of this football program. Wouldn't ending the year at 11-2 and ranked in the top ten with a marquee bowl win on top of it look better than finishing 10-3 with no real impressive victories?
Right now, my feeling of this Penn State football season is one of unsatisfied hunger. While winning the Fiesta Bowl instead of the national championship wouldn't change that, it would end the year on a high note, and give James Franklin his first major bowl victory as a head coach.
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