247Sports way-too-early outlook sees Penn State missing College Football Playoff in 2024

The 2024 college football season will be a season of major changes in the sport. In addition to another round of major conference realignment changes, including the Big Ten adding four teams from the Pac-12, the College Football Playoff will undergo its first expansion of the playoff era by growing from a simple four-team model to a 12-team format. History would suggest an expanded field to 12 teams should benefit a program like Penn State, which would have qualified on numerous occasions if the 12-team format was in play already, but one way-too-early projection sees the Nittany Lions continuing to miss out on the playoff fun.

247Sports shared its way-too-early look at the College Football Playoff matchups and other notable bowl games to look forward to next college football postseason. And while Penn State’s projected bowl matchup is something to be excited about, it still falls outside of the playoff mix.

The early projection from 247Sports pairs Penn State against Alabama in the Citrus Bowl, which is not one of the College Football Playoff games. Of course, that also means Alabama would miss out on the playoff, which could lead to some rocky offseason chatter for first-year head coach Kalen DeBoer in his first season in Tuscaloosa following the retirement of Nick Saban. DeBoer was hired away from Washington, which lost to Michigan in this past season’s national championship game.

The blurb about the Citrus Bowl matchup from 247Sports focussed entirely on Alabama, but it is fair to suggest Penn State will enter the 2024 season with some questions to be addressed, room to improve, and a challenging schedule in front of it. Penn State has three new coordinators in 2024 with Andy Kotelnicki from Kansas looking to give the offense a jumpstart and former Indiana head coach Tom Allen replacing the highly-successful…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/247sports-way-too-early-outlook-222015878.html

Author : Nittany Lions Wire

Publish date : 2024-01-18 22:20:15

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