{"id":4298,"date":"2016-11-30T17:28:15","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T22:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordoncollegefootball.com\/?p=4298"},"modified":"2018-01-08T11:01:32","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T16:01:32","slug":"penn-state-nittany-lions-reach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2016\/11\/30\/penn-state-nittany-lions-reach\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn State Nittany Lions Reach Their First B1G Title Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Penn State Nittany Lions Reach Their First B1G Title Game<\/h2>\n<p>At the beginning of the season, not even the avid <strong>Penn State<\/strong> Football fans would have thought this team would have the amount of success that it has had recently. Not only did the team, with its new quarterback of <strong>Trace McSorley,<\/strong> beat <strong>Ohio State,<\/strong> but it also beat <strong>Michigan State\u2014with<\/strong> the help of an Ohio State win over Michigan\u2014to solidify its first appearance in the <strong>Big Ten Championship<\/strong> game that will be hosted in <strong>Indianapolis, IN.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What is even more remarkable about this team is the <em>way<\/em> they have been winning. With the exceptions of its loss to the <strong>University of Pittsburgh Panthers,<\/strong> overtime win against the <strong>Minnesota Gophers<\/strong>, and the upset win of the season against Ohio State, the <strong>Nittany Lions<\/strong> have been winning games by outscoring their opponents in tremendous fashion. The chemistry between McSorley and his high-powered wide-out threats, as well as featured running back <strong>Saquon Barkley<\/strong> cannot go unnoticed. The average college football spectator could easily\u00a0think this team has\u00a0been playing together for years and not just, essentially, six months.<\/p>\n<p>The efforts of the defensive side of the ball deserves its praise, too. With the emergence of senior safety <strong>Marcus Allen,<\/strong> the Nittany Lions have created another unit to be prepared for alongside their notorious line of\u00a0defense in\u00a0the linebackers.<\/p>\n<h3>The B1G Championship Game<\/h3>\n<p>Looking forward to the Big Ten Championship, Penn State and the <strong>Wisconsin Badgers<\/strong> look evenly matched on paper. Both teams have a record of 10-2. December 3, 2016 will be Penn State\u2019s first Big Ten Championship game since the expansion in 2010; Wisconsin, however, is the more seasoned team in Big Ten Championship games, making this year\u2019s appearance the team\u2019s fourth. Although the game has yet to be played and a victor has yet to hoist a trophy, many fans are talking of \u201cwhat ifs\u201d in the event Penn State does prevail against the Badgers.<\/p>\n<p>It is the opinion of many that Ohio State still remains the better team of the two and that both the Buckeyes and the Michigan Wolverines should be able to play in this season\u2019s playoff football game(s). Although college football no longer utilizes the <strong>Bowl Championship Series (BCS),<\/strong> the decisions that will be made in the event of a Penn State victory may be strikingly similar to those of the BCS system; a system in which many did not think too highly of. As a result, it goes without saying a lot is on the line for several Big Ten teams, and there will be no shortage of emotion from both players and fans.<\/p>\n<p>The Penn State Nittany Lions will face off against the Wisconsin Badgers on December 3, 2016 at 7:00pm CT in <strong>Lucas Oil Stadium<\/strong> in Indianapolis, IN. The game will be broadcast nationally on FOX.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/627068794\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:66.666667% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/627068794?et=ZmwK_a2fTCZ-45P0HK1CYA&#038;viewMoreLink=on&#038;sig=zLZ8POF9R5j6s-azImT-5rPXlG5CbEhcsf0evjz9Upc=&#038;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin:0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Penn State Nittany Lions Reach Their First B1G Title Game At the beginning of the season, not even the avid Penn State Football fans would have thought this team would have the amount of success that it has had recently. Not only did the team, with its new quarterback of Trace McSorley, beat Ohio State, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":4317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"467","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7983,184,79,71,309,85],"class_list":["post-4298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","tag-big-ten-football","tag-cfb","tag-college-football","tag-football","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-wisconsin-badgers"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}