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Penn State coaches and players have done their best to sidestep questions about rankings, most notably the ones decided by the College Football Playoff committee.
If they watched the latest update Tuesday night on ESPN or read about the rankings Wednesday, Anthony Donkoh and Drew Allar didn’t let on.
“I don’t really look at the rankings,” Donkoh said. “Coach (James) Franklin does a good job of having us focus on ourselves.”
The Nittany Lions are trying to finish the regular season strongly, by winning Saturday at Minnesota and then next week against Maryland at Beaver Stadium. If they do that and go 11-1, they’ll be in the 12-team playoff with a first-round home game.
If they don’t, then they put themselves at the mercy of the committee. Which is never ideal.
The rankings don’t mean as much yet, despite the histrionics Tuesday night in the ESPN studio. The cable network, after all, does have air time to fill. That they filled it with a lot of hot air again is beside the point.
Whether Penn State is one spot ahead of Indiana this week is meaningless. If the Hoosiers beat Ohio State Saturday, they’ll be ahead of the Nittany Lions. If they don’t, they’ll stay behind them.
Some of the comments made by the studio panel were misleading, at best. One guy said for the second straight week that Indiana should be ahead of Penn State because the Lions struggled to beat UCLA and the Hoosiers didn’t.
Facts: Penn State led 24-3 after three quarters on the way to a 27-11 win, which included the Bruins scoring a touchdown and 2-point conversion with 16 seconds to go. Indiana led 28-10 after three quarters in a 42-13 victory.
Another member of the studio panel suggested the committee put Illinois in the rankings at No. 25 to justify Penn State’s No. 4 ranking, ignoring the Illini’s 7-3 record.
Some media members…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/penn-state-coaches-players-focus-044700269.html
Author : Reading Eagle, Pa.
Publish date : 2024-11-21 04:47:00
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