Why Penn State is in the Rose Bowl and not the Playoff, despite winning the Big Ten

Perhaps you’re looking at your TV on Monday in bamboozled wonderment. Surely, a Big Ten champion like No. 5 Penn State should be in the College Football Playoff, right? Especially one that beat one of the Playoff entrants, Ohio State, in the regular season, and especially because that Playoff team didn’t even win its division, much less the Big Ten.

Plus, the Buckeyes got blown out by Clemson, so what gives? What gives is that Penn State had two regular season losses, and there’s no getting around it.

Ohio State lost via blocked kick on the road to the No. 5 team in the country. But Penn State still lost twice, to the No. 6 team in the country (a team Ohio State beat) and to Pitt.

The Buckeyes played Oklahoma in non-conference play and stomped the Sooners in Norman. The Nittany Lions played Pitt and lost via last-second interception. (At the time, we thought that result was important because of how it pertained to Franklin’s employment prospects. It ended up deciding a Playoff spot.)

Ohio State is second in both the AP and coaches polls; Penn State is fifth in both.

The Buckeyes are third in S&P+, second in Sagarin, and ahead of the Nittany Lions in nearly every other computer ranking.

Scoring margin against six common opponents: Ohio State plus-149, Penn State plus-78.

Yes, Clemson absolutely thrashed Ohio State at the Fiesta Bowl semifinal. Yes, Alabama meticulously took apart and overwhelmed Washington at the Peach Bowl.

But before that, Ohio State and Washington both lost one game. That’s exactly half as many games as Penn State lost. Ohio State’s loss was to Penn State, but another way of looking at that is that Ohio State lost what turned out to be a top-10 team. So did Washington, when USC beat the Huskies in Seattle in November. Those are forgivable losses if they’re your only ones. They happen to non-Alabama teams.

Penn State also had a top-10 loss, suffered against Michigan back in September. That loss was by 39 points, a far bigger margin than Ohio State’s loss to Penn State or Washington’s to USC. But that one top-10 loss clearly wasn’t Penn State’s problem, because the Nittany Lions wound up slotted ahead of Michigan by the Playoff committee. A head-to-head result isn’t the only factor in comparing teams.

Penn State’s problem is that it had another loss. That was against Pitt in the second game of the season, in a dramatic rivalry renewal. Pitt was a good team this year and made a late appearance in top-25 rankings. But if you’re going to lose any other games, Pitt’s not the kind of team you can lose to and still make the Playoff. (For what it’s worth, no two-loss teams have ever made the Playoff in three years, period.)

Clemson lost to Pitt, too, and the Tigers still made the Playoff. But the Tigers had something in common with Ohio State, Washington, and every other team that’s appeared in the Playoff, ever: they only lost once.

Penn State lost to Pitt, and Penn State also lost another game. Maybe the Lions could’ve withstood one of those and still gotten into the Playoff. Not both.

The Rose Bowl is the grandest exception to non-Playoff bowl games not meaning anything important. It’s been played more than 100 times, and it’s the most historic bowl college football has to offer. It’s a really cool thing for a Big Ten team to win, and no Penn State fan should pretend playing Alabama would’ve resulted in anything other than a Washington-like loss. It’s easy to say you want Bama. You don’t really.

Penn State’s got a great opportunity in front of it. It’s also the opportunity they most deserve, even though they got so close to moving one rung up the ladder.