One result like this doesn't make Northwestern a top-25 team. Anyone arguing otherwise is actually making a different argument: that Penn State is a disaster. They'd be right about that part.
Northwestern, unranked and having received only a single stray vote in the AP poll entering this game, blew the doors off Penn State 34-13 in the debut of a stadium that reportedly cost north of $850 million. It was a party, a good crowd in a new building, as a program that's spent years as an afterthought finally got its signature night. Enjoy it, Evanston. You earned it.
The case for Northwestern as a genuine national contender rests on one data point: beating a Penn State team that's falling apart. It's an opportunity, and Northwestern took it, which is all you can ask of a team. It makes them 3-1 with a nice win over a program in crisis. Ask again in a month, once the schedule stops handing them gifts.
Penn State's collapse is what actually matters here. This loss drops them to 0-2 in Big Ten play, a year after they fired James Franklin for losing to this exact team, 22-21, in a game that effectively ended his tenure. Penn State looked at that result, decided it was unacceptable, fired a coach with more than a decade in Happy Valley, paid him a fortune to leave, and hired Matt Campbell to fix it.
Five weeks into Campbell's first season, Penn State got beaten by Northwestern again, worse this time. Whatever the firing was supposed to fix isn't fixed.
It should embarrass the people running the Penn State program that Franklin is unbeaten at Virginia Tech this season. The coach they decided couldn't beat Northwestern is outperforming the program that fired him for losing to Northwestern. Penn State panicked, made a change for its own sake, and now watches the coach it let go thrive somewhere else while his replacement gets embarrassed by the same team.
None of this is Northwestern's fault. David Braun's team showed up, played a loose, confident game in front of its own fans in a brand new building, and did exactly what a team is supposed to do against an opponent that's falling apart. That's good coaching and a good night, but it doesn't prove Northwestern belongs in the top 25. Proving that takes beating teams that aren't collapsing, and Northwestern hasn't done that yet this season.
Penn State fired a coach over a loss to Northwestern and then lost to Northwestern again under his replacement. Penn State mistook the symptom for the disease, and it's about to learn the hard way that changing the name on the headset doesn't change who you lose to.
