If the Big Ten gets four automatic bids, it changes a lot for Penn State

The cream always rises to a Top 4 Big Ten finish.

For anyone who has somehow missed the memo - I live in Minnesota currently covering local high school sports. It has been an interesting change of pace on a lot of fronts [we had -45 wind chill this week]. For example, I was driving back from the state cross-country finals when Zion Tracy hit Ohio State with a pick-six.

I have also looked high school freshmen dead in the eyes and been reminded that maybe my esoteric questions need to be toned down a bit. It has been a lot of fun, but it has been different.

One of the interesting things about high school sports though is the approach to winning. I will admit that aside from one softball team and a few wrestlers, I don’t cover programs that are aspiring to the highest goals known to mankind, but it still adjusts your thinking.

Because all of these teams make the sectional playoffs with a chance to qualify for the state level competition. Boiled down, with a few exceptions, everyone makes the postseason.

For me, the result is a paradigm shift in regards to how I view the regular season. There are obvious benefits to winning - conference titles to take home and seeding - but it’s mostly about hitting your stride at the end of the year and seeing where that takes you.

Transferring this over to Penn State football isn’t 1-to-1, but it does bring me back to something I’ve thought about a lot, and a few changes that could be on the way.

The first - I might be guilty of mentioning somewhere before - Tom Brady remarking during the playoffs that the Philadelphia Eagles didn’t sign Saquon Barkley to win them games in October, they signed him to win them games in January and February.

The positional equivalence is just happenstance, but it makes me think about the return of Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton. While this isn’t absolutely true, Penn State could probably win most of its games with a lot of different running backs. Penn State has generally proven time and time again that it can get good running back production out of most everyone it fields. There are functional reasons why Allen and Singleton are better than most, but Penn State’s win/loss projections during the regular season don’t change much with or without them.

But the playoffs? But the time of the year when it’s win or go home? That’s when it matters. That’s when brining back players really makes a difference. As long as Penn State is splitting its biggest two games of the year, it might not even really matter if Penn State ever beats Ohio State during the regular season. It’ll matter a lot in the postseason. It’ll matter when Penn State - like a high school team - is finding its stride at the end of the year.

Enter another potential change.

The new proposal would not only expand the playoff, but also include a system for assigning multiple automatic bids per conference into the playoff, and then finalize a schedule that would result in leagues earning millions more from media partners.

The proposal includes giving the SEC and Big Ten four automatic qualifiers each, two each to the Big 12 and ACC, and one to the highest-ranked Group of Five champion.

This brings us back to Penn State’s place in the world. As college football continues to shrink, Penn State keeps making the cut on the right side of programs that matter and the ones that don’t. If the Big Ten and SEC agree on a situation where each league is granted four automatic bids, Penn State will likely be a near annual playoff participant.

I’m maybe overthinking things, or overvaluing change, but in a world where Penn State can make the playoffs at a near guaranteed rate, it fundamentally changes how I view the regular season.

At the end of the day you still have to win, and you still have win most all of your games and fans will still want wins over rivals no matter what. Ask Ryan Day. It doesn’t make life *easier* but it does shift some elements of how we talk about the regular season. It’s about where you’re going, not where you are right now in Week 4. Maybe that has always been true, but it’ll only be more pronounced.

I won’t be calling Penn State a high school team anytime soon, but if the Nittany Lions start most seasons knowing their ticket is probably already punched, it does mark a subtle, but important change in how we think about the regular season.

For the better? Depends who you ask.