Penn State Given Anxiety Tag By ESPN After Three Easy Games

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There’s something to be said about playing a cupcake schedule to start the season, even if fans don’t want to agree with it. 

I’m personally of the belief that because the College Football Playoff committee really values wins and losses, it’s almost smart to play easier opponents in the early stages of the year. 

As for Penn State, I don’t love the schedule it’s played, even if it’s at 3-0. Beating Marshall, Temple, and Buffalo really just doesn’t do a whole lot for me. At the end of the day, Penn State was supposed to win these games, and it did just that.

At the same time, it does lead to some anxiety for the fan base. While Penn State was able to win these games with relative ease, outside of that Temple game when it really just didn’t play that well, there’s not much reason to believe that the Nittany Lions are great right now. 

For The Athletic, that raises anxiety about the season's future, with Indiana and Notre Dame feeling similarly.

“Indiana, Penn State and Notre Dame have done almost nothing wrong. They’re unbeaten, highly ranked teams that have been double-digit favorites every week, yet their fans are still pacing like they know something terrible is coming… 

“Penn State breezed through Marshall, Temple and Buffalo, and will open its conference slate next Saturday at home against Wisconsin before hitting the road for the first game at Northwestern’s new stadium. The next weekend, USC visits Happy Valley; the Trojans should be the first ranked opponent of the season for Matt Campbell and his fellow Iowa State imports. Notre Dame has handled Wisconsin, Rice and Michigan State but looked less than electric in the process. The Irish are set to face their first ranked opponent on Oct. 17 with a trip to BYU.

“So, congratulations on being undefeated. We’re sorry your reward is several more weeks of double-digit-favorite anxiety,” Manny Navarro of The Athletic wrote.

I don’t disagree with what Navarro is trying to say here, and I think most Penn State fans would actually agree with him. 

For Penn State, there’s a lot that has to be answered over the next four weeks, taking on Wisconsin, Northwestern, USC, and Michigan. Two of those four games are going to define the season, as USC and Michigan are two of the better teams in America. 

If Penn State can come away with at least one of those wins and then takes care of business against everybody else, which it should, we should be looking at a College Football Playoff team. If not, it’s fair to question what these three wins even meant for the team.

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