Midweek Musings - How Will PSU Fare this Season (Pt. 2)

On Tuesday we embarked on a group effort to determine how the populace feels the Nittany Lions will do this season.

Take a look for yourselves to see how this first round of voting played out:

By a VERY small margin, most people believe that the Lions will start the season 3-0. Penn State will head on the road to Madison, and emerge with a hard-fought victory over the Badgers. They will ride that wave to a win over defending MAC champions Ball State, and will then mop up Auburn under the Beaver Stadium lights.

Sitting at 3-0, the Lions have to feel pretty good about themselves. But how does the team do through the next three games? Let’s find out!

Week 4 - vs Villanova

The Lions have survived the opening gauntlet, are sitting pretty in the top 10, and finally get a “creampuff” game. Seems like this should be a walk in the park, right?

Coming off their third tough game in as many weeks, with a revenge game against Indiana looming the following week, will PSU get caught sleeping against the lower-division Wildcats?

Week 5 - vs Indiana

There are many who would argue that it took an absurd amount of luck, officiating interference, and a pandemic for Indiana to have beaten the Lions in 2020. But beat the Lions they did, and the Hoosiers would love to make it back-to-back wins.

Once again the Lions would definitely be considered the more talented team, but will the Hoosier monkey on their back bite them again? Would a loss to Villanova the week before completely derail the team? Or would a top-10 squad get a bit too big for their britches and come out sleepy against a “clearly overmatched” Hoosier squad?

Week 6 - at Iowa

Iowa put together a very solid 2020 campaign, including a 41-21 shellacking of the Lions. Some would say that that was the nadir for Penn State, and not long thereafter the team sorted it out. But in any case, Iowa returns a lot of its production from last year, and the game will be in the harrowing confines of Kinnick Stadium.

Would a 5-0 Penn State squad simply scoff at whatever supposed voodoo exists in Iowa City? Or would a team with 1 or 2 fresh losses completely collapse on the road?

What say you? Take the poll below, and try to bear in mind the week-to-week impacts of one game on another. The Lions at this point are 3-0, with huge wins over Wisconsin and Auburn. Do they build off that momentum all the way to a 6-0 record? Or do Indiana and Iowa cause enough heartburn that the Lions stumble a bit heading toward the halfway point of the season.

We’ll carry the results of this poll into the next post, and see just how well you think the Lions will fare in 2021 when all is said and done.