As if the sting of watching Penn State lose to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl to miss out on a chance to play in the College Football Playoff national championship game didn’t hurt enough, Ohio State poured some salt on the wounds on Friday night. The Buckeyes came away with a Cotton Bowl victory over Texas to punch its ticket to the national championship game in Atlanta, where they will face Notre Dame for the ultimate bragging rights in the college football world.
As a Penn State fan, this one is going to be a little painful to watch, and your rooting interested may be a little complicated from a neutral standpoint. Which side will you be rooting for? Do you cater to Big Ten allegiance above all else like an SEC fan would do or do you root for the holier-than-thou Fighting Irish that just tossed the Nittany Lions to the curb with its late field goal victory in Miami?
Decisions, decisions.
Ohio State and Notre Dame will play in the first college football national championship game in the BCS and College Football Playoff era to not feature a conference champion. Notre Dame obviously does not play ina. conference and Ohio State finished just outside of playing for a Big Ten title with its third-place finish in the final Big Ten standings. The Buckeyes did make up for the missed opportunity by destroying Big Ten champion Oregon in the Rose Bowl in the quarterfinal round of the College Football Playoff.
Ohio State will also be going for a second straight national championship by a Big Ten team after Michigan won it all a season ago. The last time the Big Ten was home to national champions in consecutive seasons, strictly going by the AP poll, was a three-year stretch from 1940 through 1942 with back-to-back national titles awarded to Minnesota and then Ohio State.
This would be good for the Big Ten to be the home to another national champion, but it will only help show some that Penn State is still a certain degree away from climbing to the top of the pedestal. Of course, it will also continue to build a burning desire for Penn State to achieve the same level of greatness. Being among the nation’s final four teams in the bracket can be a good recruiting tool. If Penn State can fix some of the visible holes through recruiting and the transfer portal, perhaps Penn State will get its national title shot soon enough.
In the meantime, Ohio State and Notre Dame will square off in Atlanta on Monday, Jan. 20 for the College Football Playoff national championship.
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