Despite Penn State’s desultory 20-13 loss to Ohio State in Beaver Stadium, a couple of Nittany Lion veterans said that they still have their eyes on the ultimate goal in college football — a national championship.
For Penn State, the week ahead includes the release of the initial rankings of the College Football Playoff on Tuesday night, and a game against Washington next Saturday in Beaver Stadium with a kickoff time of 8 p.m.
“Next week, we’re going to need the crowd more than we needed it today,” said co-captain and linebacker Kobe King after the Nittany Lions’ first loss of 2024. “We need to stay the course — players are going to stay the course, coaches are going to stay the course. We still have a national championship to go get.”
Defensive tackle Dvon J-Thomas echoed those sentiments, given that the new playoff system still provides Penn State a chance to win it all, even with the loss to Ohio State.
“That’s part of the message that Coach Franklin gave at the end of the game,” J-Thomas said. “We have a lot of games left. There are still opportunities for us. We’re still going to have an opportunity to possibly see them again and accomplish what we have been working for forever — since the last time we won a national championship. And that’s winning everything. There’s still a shot at that.”
The CFP, said J-Thomas, is “the ray of light at the end of the tunnel. Everything seems kind of dark now — especially to the younger guys. Coming in, the way we prepared, the way we looked all season, we didn’t think we’d ever lose. Now that we experienced a loss, they think it’s the end of the world. But it’s truly not.”
This year for the first time, the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams, so a single, loss — or maybe even two — will likely not keep Penn State out of the playoffs. Penn State could conceivably face the Buckeyes again, either in the Big Ten title game (given the unlikelihood that Oregon loses two conference games) or in the CFP.
“We definitely, hopefully get another chance to see those guys again and make things different,” King said. “To go where we want to go, we have to do everything right, get better every day and learn from our mistakes in the past. We want to play them [Ohio State] again. We can play them at 7 o’clock…we can do it over again.
King shared that James Franklin — Penn State’s 11th-year head coach, who is 1-10 vs. Ohio State — “said the same thing he usually says. We still have to get better with our mistakes, like he emphasized. We definitely still have a long season ahead. We still need to get that national championship.”
POST-GAME ROUNDUP
Here is what some other Nittany Lions — now 7-1 overall and 4-1 in the Big Ten — had to say about their team’s chances for the CFP, despite their loss to Ohio State.
Dom DeLuca, co-captain and linebacker: “There’s still a lot of season left. It’s kind of like an NFL season now. One loss back then, one loss in college football you’re done for. Now, every Super Bowl winner has one loss or even more. So we just have to come out and play our game, play our next game, play at a high level.”
Tight end Tyler Warren, when asked if the CFP eases the sting of the loss. “Right now, no. Losing is losing. That’s not what we’re trying to do. But being able to focus on the next game and understand it’s still in our hands and not over yet, is obviously something that we’re aware of.”
Cornerback Jalen Kimber: “The season is not over. Like Coach Franklin said, we have a long season ahead of us. We have multiple games. We could still finish strong. This back half of the season we could still win all of our games and achieve what we want to achieve. It’s not over yet. It’s a new day and age of college football.”
