Sure, Penn State is 3-0 and things are looking pretty rosy (or orangey) at the moment, but just how does a 3-0 Penn State stack up against the rest of the 32 unbeaten teams in FBS after Week 3? ESPN’s Bill Connelly took the time to rank all 33 unbeaten teams going into Week 4 and determined that Penn State is more than certainly worthy of being in the upper half of the land of the unbeatens.
Penn State comes in at No. 8 in Connelly’s ranking of unbeaten teams, which feels pretty fair.
“They were ready from the start,” Connelly said of Penn State’s performance against Auburn this past weekend. “Going by SP+ rankings, James Franklin’s Nittany Lions have already played two of their three most difficult road games of the season. They won ’em both first outlasting Purdue in Week 1, then grinding Auburn into dust on Saturday.”
Connelly sees a path to Penn State cracking its way into the top five at some point with the defense and running game leading the way as they have the last couple of games.
“[The] Nittany Lions aren’t far removed from a run of three 1-win seasons in four years, and their talent level is as high as ever,” Connelly noted. “That trip to Michigan on Oct. 15 could be utterly enormous.”
We’ll try not to get too ahead of ourselves with that Michigan game, but Penn State does have two very favorable home matchups to get through before hitting the idle week leading into the road trip to Ann Arbor. Penn State hosts Central Michigan this weekend and Northwestern in Week 5. Penn State is a sizable favorite against Central Michigan and should be a solid favorite at home against the Wildcats, a team that just lost two straight including a home loss to FCS Southern Illinois. Penn State should be 5-0 when they visit Michigan. And as long as the Wolverines don’t mess up this weekend at home against Maryland, next week at Iowa or Indiana the week after that, then yes, that mid-October clash in the Big House will be something.
But first, Central Michigan in Beaver Stadium this Saturday at noon.
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