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Winning out against unranked teams in order to secure an at-large bid to the College Football Playoff didn’t turn out to be as easy as Penn State head coach James Franklin might have hoped.
Penn State narrowly avoided a costly Big Ten loss as Drew Allar and the Nittany Lions claimed a 26-25 victory on the road Saturday night at Minnesota.
The loss had some fans wondering if Penn State, which entered the contest ranked No. 4 in the AP Top 25 poll and sixth in the latest College Football Playoff bracket, deserved a playoff bid at all.
Graham Coffey @GrahamCoffeyDC
Penn state’s entire offense is #44 and then Allar taking off running because nobody is open then getting stuffed in short yardage unless they’re running out of a punt formation
But hey at least they scored 6 offensive points against the only ranked team they played this year
Minnesota climbed out to an early 10-point lead thanks to a 20-yard touchdown run from Marcus Major and a fourth-down sack of Allar in the first quarter.
Allar got Penn State on the board by connecting with Omari Evans on a 45-yard touchdown, and the Nittany Lions looked set to shift the momentum of the game when Max Brosmer picked off Minnesota quarterback Dominic DeLuca.
Then the Gophers blocked a punt by Riley Thompson and took back the ball on Penn State’s 21-yard line.
Minnesota scored a touchdown on the next play and headed into halftime leading by three points.
Penn State came back to win thanks to a Nicholas Singleton rushing touchdown, a Zakee Wheatley fumble recovery and a critical fake punt for a first down that kept the ball in the Nittany Lions possession late in the fourth quarter.
CBS Sports College Football 🏈 @CBSSportsCFB
WHAT A CALL!
Penn State fakes it and picks up the first down. pic.twitter.com/n2t8kHrG4T
Allar then found tight end Tyler Warren on a fourth down with fewer than 30 seconds left to seal the win.
The final score was still closer than the Nittany Lions would have liked. A Big Ten loss would have impacted their ability to compete with other single conference-loss teams like Indiana (10-1 overall, 7-1 Big Ten) and Ohio State (10-1 overall, 7-1 Big Ten) in the CFP rankings.
Penn State can now continue fighting for home field advantage in the playoff by improving to 11-1 next weekend.
Penn State closes out the season with a home game against Maryland next Saturday afternoon.
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