Poor Penn State. They have to live with being #3 behind undefeated Texas and Alabama, faced with the possibility of yet again going unbeaten and left out of the national title picture. Even Texas Tech, waiting in the wings if they beat the Longhorns, could hold the Nittany Lions out of a spot in the top two.
And that's the way it should be. The Big Twelve and SEC are so much better than the Big Ten that any team that emerges undefeated from those conferences should have priority over an unbeaten Big Ten team. Especially since both of the former conferences play a championship game, meaning they'd have to go 13-0.
But now, adding insult to injury, prominent sports writers like Tom Dienhart are suggesting that teams that have already lost a game should move ahead of the Lions. That's plain sad. Especially when there is little to no logic behind the sentiment.
Dienhart names, in addition to the aforementioned Texas, Alabama, and Texas Tech, three other teams he thinks are more deserving than Penn State: Florida, Georgia, and USC. Let's look at them one by one.
Florida just got done crushing Kentucky 63-5, a few weeks after they beat LSU 51-21. No doubt they've been pretty dominant, except when they lost to 4-4 Mississippi—at home. So the Gators have a home loss to a marginally winning team, to go with blowouts over outmatched competition. Yes, even LSU counts among the severely overrated. The dirty secret is that the SEC, which has been the premier league the last two years (or more), isn't as good this year. That doesn't mean that a 1-loss team that wins the league shouldn't play for the national title, but they shouldn't jump over Penn State.
Georgia just beat LSU as well. That seems to be the litmus test for whether an SEC team is good: can they crush LSU? Florida and Georgia pass the test; Auburn, not so much. We saw what happened to Auburn against a struggling West Virginia. Face the facts: the SEC has three good teams—Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Florida and Georgia play each other, so only one can possibly figure into the national title talk. Should the winner of that game win the conference, they deserve to play for the national title, but again, not ahead of Penn State.
USC sputtered past Arizona on Saturday, the same Arizona team that lost to Stanford and New Mexico. Dienhart complains about the Big Ten, but where is his outrage at USC's easy path to national title contention in the abysmal Pac Ten? Sure, you can compare USC's 35-3 whipping (at home) of Ohio State to Penn State's 13-6 win (on the road), but at least Penn State won the game. Which is more than can be said for USC against Oregon State, a team that Penn State destroyed 45-14. Now THAT is a relevant comparison. And Dienhart has the gall to suggest USC is more deserving than Penn State? An undefeated USC and an undefeated Penn State would have the same basic résumé; give one team a loss and it's no contest, and no person using logic could suggest otherwise.
The three teams he mentions, Florida, Georgia, and USC, each have one win to hang their hats on so far: Florida and Georgia beat LSU, and USC beat Ohio State. Dienhart complains so much about the Big Ten and Ohio State, but somehow USC deserves a title shot due to beating the Buckeyes? And where is the derision for LSU, who has given up 50 points twice now? Should they not be as contemptible as Ohio State? After all, they *won* the title last year, so they have fallen much farther.
The bottom line is, if Penn State loses, they're out, period. Just like USC should have been when they lost. Florida and Georgia deserve a shot at redemption because of the schedule they face, and next week one of the two will be eliminated. But currently, Penn State deserves their ranking, and they are properly ahead in line of those three teams in the national title picture.
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