Penn State Bowl Projections: How About West Virginia?

If Penn State wants to play a bowl game, these are the team's top options.

What seemed unfathomable in November now looks inevitable: If Penn State wants to play in a bowl game, it certainly will be invited with a 4-5 record.

Penn State hosts Illinois in a Big Ten Champions Week game Saturday as a 15-point favorite over a 2-5 team that just fired its head coach and has to travel a week before Christmas. If the Lions don't win that game...

After that, the decision should belong to the players. Most of them have been essentially quarantined since June (save for a brief period when the Big Ten canceled the season) and now have campus basically to themselves.

To play a bowl game, they'll have to give up at least another week in a modified quarantine. Penn State's spring semester is scheduled to begin Jan. 19, so the Lions will have a few weeks at home before returning for classes and winter conditioning.

Further, Franklin hasn't had a losing season at Penn State and has been to a bowl game every year. Is that a motivating factor? Probably not as much as seeing his family sooner.

As he said Tuesday during his weekly press conference, Franklin has three current goals: Keeping the team healthy, finding a way to beat Illinois and figuring out how to bring his family back to State College. The coach added that the team would discuss bowl options Saturday night following the game against Illinois.

But Franklin also stresses the limited number of games college players get to play (though this year's essentially come without eligibility restrictions) and might accept that his players want more.

Following last week's win over Michigan State, several players said they'd be willing to play in a bowl game. How many truly want to is unknown.

At this point, Penn State is a candidate for two games: the Dec. 26 Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Phoenix and the Dec. 30 Duke's Mayo Bowl in Charlotte.

The Guaranteed Rate Bowl offers a Big 12 opponent; the Duke's Mayo Bowl has an ACC tie-in. That's notable, because three ACC teams (Boston College, Pitt and Virginia) have opted out of bowl games. More could follow.

So where might Penn State play a postseason game? Here are the top projections.

ESPN: Guaranteed Rate Bowl: Penn State vs. West Virginia; Duke's Mayo Bowl: Penn State vs. Virginia Tech (Virginia Tech opted out Monday).

CBS Sports: Duke's Mayo Bowl: Penn State vs. North Carolina State

Sporting News: Dec. 30:Duke's Mayo Bowl: Penn State vs. North Carolina State

College Football News: Duke's Mayo Bowl: Penn State vs. Wake Forest

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