How Penn State Made the Big Ten Championship Game

The Nittany Lions navigated an offseason of change, critical injuries, three tense road games, that loss and its resulting boos to earn a date with Oregon in Indianapolis.

Penn State Nittany Lion players sing their alma mater following a game against the Maryland Terrapins at Beaver Stadium. / Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

At Big Ten Media Days in July, Penn State's Dvon J-Thomas looked around Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium and promised himself he'd return for the Big Ten Championship Game. This week, he's going back.

"This is such a surreal feeling," J-Thomas said on a Big Ten players call Monday. "We're definitely honored to be coming back, ... and it's just crazy. After such a long season, you're going week by week and then now, all of a sudden, it's just here. We're so elated. It's crazy."

Penn State returns to Indianapolis for the first time since 2016 to face No. 1 Oregon in Saturday's Big Ten title game, a improbable prospect until Saturday afternoon. The Nittany Lions (11-1) needed help from Michigan, a three-touchdown underdog at Ohio State, simply to have this opportunity. But that was a short-term requirement.

To make the championship game, Penn State had to navigate an offseason of change (three new coordinators), critical injuries, three tense road games, that loss, the following week's booing and the pervasive opinion that it was good but not good enough.

Despite all that, the Nittany Lions just won a bunch of games. Penn State won at least 10 regular-season games for the third consecutive year. It has won 32 games over the past three seasons, something only six other programs did (Georgia, Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon and Tulane) have done.

Penn State did so with a monotonous consistency that its head coach has wrapped tightly around the program. James Franklin's team is not the football equivalent of crypto, with its thrilling highs and terrifying lows and frantic mood swings that make it such fragile long-term investment. Instead, Penn State is a sturdy municipal bond, one with moderate but continuing yields and low risk.

This postseason presents Penn State with an opportunity to extend its risk, buy some Bitcoin and see where the College Football Playoff takes it. But the Nittany Lions remain savvy enough to know what got them here.

"Obviously you can look at the big picture, but to get somewhere, it takes the steps," Penn State tight end Tyler Warren said after the Nittany Lions' 44-7 win over Maryland. "And focusing on those steps is how you get to where you want to go, so I think we’ve done a really good job of that."

How Penn State qualified for the Big Ten Championship Game

Before the season, the Big Ten released a three-page document outlining the tiebreakers to determine the title-game participants of its new 18-team conference. For Penn State, tiebreaker step No. 4 was the landing point:

The tied teams will be compared based on the best cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents.

Penn State and Indiana tied for second behind Oregon with 8-1 conference records, having beaten the same Big Ten opponents and having lost to Ohio State. But Penn State's opponents won more games than Indiana's, sending Penn State to Indianapolis.

Penn State's road to the Big Ten title game

Wins rise and fall in relevance after the fact. Penn State's season-opening victory over West Virginia appears less impressive now, after the Mountaineers went 6-6 and fired their coach. At the time, though, Franklin called West Virginia "undervalued," and his team looked sharp in debuting coordinator Andy Kotelnicki's offense. These Nittany Lions also got their first real-time taste of relying on their consistency and preparation.

Penn State scored a touchdown before halftime, which lasted more than 2 hours thanks to a storm. Having been through that seven years ago at Michigan State, Franklin had the players and program ready with food, places to sit outside the locker room and IPads (new this year) to watch the first half. Penn State scored on a Nicholas Singleton 40-yard touchdown run to start the third quarter and take a 27-6 lead. That win set a tone.

The season certainly delivered volatility. The following week, Bowling Green scored 24 first-half points at Beaver Stadium, something no other opponent did vs. the Nittany Lions this season or last. Penn State trailed at halftime five times and won four, including rallying from a 14-point deficit at USC. And it played most consistently in the third quarter, not allowing a touchdown all season.

The Nittany Lions overcome a series of injuries

Franklin has called this season one of his most difficult to manage regarding injuries. Before the season, Penn State lost expected defensive contributors Zuriah Fisher and Keon Wylie. Starting safety KJ Winston, a captain and potential first-round draft pick, was injured in the opener. Days before the Bowling Green, starting tight end Andrew Rappleyea sustained a long-term injury.

As the season progressed, receiver Kaden Saunders and running back Cam Wallace were lost for the season. Three different tight ends were hurt during the season, though Warren wasn't among them. Starting right tackle Anthony Donkoh's season ended at Minnesota. Defensive tackle Alonzo Ford Jr. was injured in that game as well. Running back Nicholas Singleton missed the UCLA game, while a midseason injury slowed defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton. Franklin said both are rounding into health for the postseason.

Penn State also got a road scare at Wisconsin, where quarterback Drew Allar was hurt in the first half, tried to warm up after halftime and couldn't return. The Nittany Lions trailed 10-7 at halftime and didn't have much offensive punch before safety Jaylen Reed, the back end's playmaker, returned an interception for a touchdown. Backup quarterback Beau Pribula led two touchdown drives, and the Nittany Lions won 28-13 in Madison to remain unbeaten.

How Penn State got over another stinging loss to Ohio State

For the first time in 10 years, Penn State didn't score an offensive touchdown in a game. It seemed fitting that the opponent was Ohio State, which beat the Nittany Lions for the eighth consecutive year. The Buckeyes held Penn State to its low-point drive of the season, stopping the offense four times from inside the 5-yard line, including on three consecutive run plays.

The next week, more than a handful of the 110,000 fans at Beaver Stadium for the Penn State White Out booed Franklin during pregame introductions. Though the crowd couldn't let go, Penn State had. As defensive end Abdul Carter said, the mechanics of the season had changed, and the loss didn't end theirs. However, the Nittany Lions also returned to practice Sunday after the game to find a coaching staff stoicly drilling the routine.

"We harp on it so much in terms of our team meetings and how we speak to each other, with the veterans in the room and coach Franklin, that it shouldn't be too hard for the younger guys to see that and understand what it takes to get better every single week," said J-Thomas, the defensive tackle.

Penn State consistently converts on fourth down

If one single down defined, and perhaps saved, this season, it was fourth down. Penn State ranked second in the Big Ten, and eighth nationally, in fourth-down conversion success (14-for-19, or 73.7 percent). One of those misses essentially led Ohio State to ending that game with the ball. But five conversions helped send Penn State to Indianapolis.

At USC, quarterback Drew Allar threw two 4th-and-long passes to receiver Julian Fleming, who had dropped a pass in the first half. At Minnesota, Penn State converted three 4th-and-1 plays on its final offensive series, including one on a fake punt. Penn State enters the Big Ten title game having converted five consecutive fourth downs.

Penn State heads to Indianapolis seeking to polish part of its game. Franklin wants his running backs to generate more yards after contact, his receivers to get more separation downfield and make contested catches, his defense to create more turnovers and his field-goal unit to fix its recent blind spot regarding blocks. But otherwise, through some acute and chronic issues, Franklin and Penn State maintained a level head through 12 games.

It's noteworthy that, although Penn State has lost eight straight games to Ohio State, it also hasn't lost to an unranked team since 2021. And Ohio State's loss to unranked Michigan is a contributing reason Penn State will play Oregon on Saturday for the Big Ten title.

"We had opportunities to [beat Ohio State] and we have had opportunities to win those types of games in the past. We've got to find a way to get it done. That starts with me," Franklin said. "But I'm also very, very proud of where our team has been consistently, and I think most programs in the country would be envious where we have been on a consistent basis pretty much over ten years."

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