Penn State is facing a bit of a challenging schedule in the first month of the upcoming college football season, and it is being recognized as one of the nation’s more difficult ones in the month of September. 247Sports ranked the 15 toughest September schedules in college football, and Penn State’s slate was included in the mix.
Penn State’s September schedule is the 11th-ranked most challenging schedule in the first full month of the college football season. While the home schedule includes games against MAC opponents in Central Michigan and Ohio, it is the road trips in September that ramp up the difficulty level.
Penn State opens the season on a Thursday night (Sept. 1) with a Big Ten road game against Purdue. It is the third consecutive season that will start with a Big Ten road game and it comes against a Boilermakers team that knocked off highly-ranked teams at home twice last season on their way to a nine-win season.
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In Week 3, Penn State makes its first trip in program history to Auburn for the second game in a home-and-home series. Penn State edged the Tigers in Happy Valley last season in a fun early-season non-conference matchup. Auburn is not expected to be great this season and the game looks far less intimidating than it once may have, but getting out of SEC country with a win is still expected to be a challenge for Penn State. The game is set for the CBS SEC Game of the Week national spotlight.
Here is what 247Sports had to say about Penn State’s ranking on this list;
Purdue or Auburn might not be ranked to start the season, with the latter having an ugly offseason, but no team goes on the road into two environments like Penn State does. James Franklin and company got a mulligan for the COVID-impacted 2020 season, and the Nittany Lions were 5-0 before Sean Clifford got banged up in early October. Penn State has the talent advantage to go 4-0 in this stretch, but it will without a doubt be a challenge.
Florida has the most difficult September schedule according to 247Sports with a home game against Utah and Kentucky in back-to-back weeks highlighting their September schedule.
The only other Big Ten team to appear in this ranking of the top 15 most difficult September schedules was Ohio State. Ohio State opens the season at home against Notre Dame (which is ranked No. 3 on this list) and closes out September with a game against Wisconsin.
See the full ranking of the top 15 most challenging September schedules from 247Sports.
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