It’s an off week as the Penn State football team enjoys its 5-0 start and prepares for what should be an easy homecoming victory against UMass next weekend, and then the first game of consequence against Ohio State on Sept. 21.
With the Big Ten’s announcement of future conference opponents this week — giving blue-and-white fans a glimpse at what’s ahead from 2024 to 2028 — there has been some unexpected excitement this week, too.
That’s almost all of the story. There’s a little more, though.
With conference matchups revealed and the 12-team College Football Playoff set to begin next season, it’s also time to mourn the loss of meaningful non-conference matchups on Penn State football schedules for the foreseeable future, and maybe forever.
While the 12-team playoff would seemingly allow a little more wiggle room for teams across the country, meaning a conference championship is not the only route to the playoff and strength of schedule could be a deciding factor between successful teams, that likely will not be the approach at Penn State — or many other major college programs.
The extra variable, and a potential loss, offers too much risk. That’s a shame, but it’s a reality. Short series or trips for games against the likes of Alabama, Auburn and Notre Dame are gone.
Instead, fans will get mostly one-off schedule fillers at home against Ball State, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Delaware, Kent State, Marshall and Nevada the next half decade.
Still, the conference schedule is awesome, and the change and newcomers will make things special for a while.
For example, next year’s home schedule features Illinois, Maryland, Ohio State, UCLA and Washington. (Along with Bowling Green and Kent State.) That’s fairly fan friendly. And the road games offer an interesting and manageable conference quartet: Minnesota, Purdue, Wisconsin and USC. (We’re not just waiting to see which one of those will be the road opener for Penn State.) There’s a road trip to West Virginia, too.
A few days after the schedule release, fans have probably circled dates and started investigating plans for road trips. All of those will be conference specific for years going forward.
That’s going to the route to a national championship anymore, and with the Big Ten conference stretching from coast to coast, that route has more than enough challenges for coaching staffs. Plus, most Penn State fans are so loyal and supportive that success and W’s will make scheduling matters almost meaningless. They’ll take a couple lopsided, uncompetitive games a season as a tradeoff to bigger success.
Those rare intersectional road games against higher-profile opponents were neat while they lasted, though.
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