STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Penn State lost control of their own destiny during Saturday's 39-38 loss to Ohio State and in the process slipped from No. 2 to No. 7 in this week's AP Poll.
While the first round of College Football Playoff rankings will be released Tuesday night, the long-term ramifications of Penn State's fourth quarter fizzle could come back to be the difference in the Lions' post-season opportunities unless of course they get some help from the teams ahead of them, specifically from Big Ten East foe Ohio State that now has the inside track to the conference championship.
How the committee views Penn State in this first set of rankings will be telling. The Lions' top win was against then ranked Michigan and their next best win came on the road against Iowa. A win Saturday night would've given Penn State the marquee checkmark on their growing resume, but whether or not the dramatic fashion of the loss matters much remains unknown.
"I don’t know how they view us because obviously we were the higer ranked team, but coming into the game we were the underdog," Saquon Barkley said Saturday night. "We fought to the last, literally last two minutes of the game. ... We lost to a good team. I guarantee you if you go to that lockerroom over there they’re going to say they beat a great team."
And of course last year when the Lions upset Ohio State and won the Big Ten title they were then were left out of the College Football Playoff, a fact the Heisman Trophy candidate mentioned after the game. Penn State is still very much in the conversation for the College Football Playoff should they win out -- which is very do-able with games remaining against Michigan State, Rutgers, Nebraska and Maryland -- and get some help.
The Lions will need to do some scoreboard watching and Ohio State has games remaining at Iowa, against Michigan State, against Illinois and at Michigan.
"We beat this team last year and they made it to the playoff so football is very unpredictable," Barkley said. "Everyone who wants to count us out go ahead, they don’t really matter. The only thing that really matters is the 156 people that’s in our locker room and the staff and the training room staff and the weight room staff and we believe in each other."
Whether or not the committee believes in the Lions' resume is another story. Penn State saw firsthand last season the ripple effect one upset can have on their season, a detail they'll now have to wait on as the regular season enters the final four-game stretch.
"Anything can happen," Trace McSorley said Saturday. "For us at this point last year we wouldn't have thought [well], we thought hey, maybe we’d have a chance at the Rose Bowl and then at the end of the year we had a shot at the College Football Playoff. Teams lose, upsets happen and we just gotta – we don’t control our own destiny – but we gotta focus on the things that we can control and that’s just coming in each day and working harder than ever, playing harder than ever on Saturday's and doing whatever it takes to get wins here on out."
The Week 9 AP Poll:
1. Alabama (59 first-place votes)
2. Georgia (2)
3. Ohio State
4. Wisconsin
5. Notre Dame
6. Clemson
7. Penn State
8. Oklahoma
9. Miami
10. TCU
11. Oklahoma State
12. Washington
13. Virginia Tech
14. Iowa State
15. UCF
16. Auburn
17. USC
18. Stanford
19. LSU
20. NC State
21. Mississippi State
22. Memphis
23. Arizona
24. Michigan State
25. Washington State