Penn State Football: Closer to 7-5 or College Football Playoff?
By Chris Snyder
Is the Penn State Football program on the cusp of breaking into the playoff picture? Or is a slight regression more realistic?
And right out of the gates I want to let everyone know, this is not an article determining whether or not James Franklin should be Penn State Football’s head coach. Because he absolutely should be and will be going forward.
Rather, this article is a fun little experiment in attempting the futile task of guessing which direction of the Penn State program is more realistic.
Under head coach James Franklin, the Penn State Football program has developed into a very good program. And this wouldn’t really surprise anyone as the Nittany Lions have eclipsed the double-digit win mark 3 times and have made it to the same number of NY6 bowl games under Franklin.
Which has generated many questions about when or if Penn State can make the final leap to consistently be in the playoff picture. To be fair, some of these questions have been directly generated by past comments from Franklin.
Anyone remember these?
"“We are going to dominate the state. We are going to dominate the region.” -James Franklin"
"“We’re going to break through, and be an elite program, by doing all the little things.” -James Franklin"
It’s been a long time since Penn State fans have seen their football team at the top of the collegiate mountain. Are they knocking on the door to the summit? Or are they teetering on the precipice of a regression?
Let’s take a deeper dive into this. More specifically, what things have to happen for Penn State to go from good to elite? Conversely, what would have to happen for the Nittany Lions to take a step back and be a perennial 7-5/8-4 program?
And finally, what do you think is more likely to happen?
I would like to start off with looking at what has to happen in order for Penn State to be an elite program. And before we do this, I would like to point out my definition of the word “elite” is a program which is generally in the discussion for the college football playoff most years.
This is further limited to the current format which only includes 4 teams into the playoff. I would also like to point out the following statistics of the college football playoff since it’s inception in the 2014-2015 season:
-Of the 28 teams which have made the playoffs, 24 had won their conference
-There have been 10 teams which have finished the season undefeated
-The remaining 18 teams have only had a single loss
-No team has made the playoffs with 2 or more losses
Therefore, for Penn State to be an “elite” program, they will have to do any of the following:
-Beat OSU, win the B1G Championship, and go undefeated 13-0
-Beat OSU, lose in the B1G Championship, and finish the season 12-1
-Lose to OSU, win the B1G East Division, win the B1G Championship, and finish the season 12-1
-Lose to OSU, not win the B1G East Division, blow the doors off everyone else, and finish the season 11-1
So with this said, here are my keys to somehow making this happen.
Road To Glory #1
Recruiting still has to improve
Look, has recruiting under James Franklin been good? Absolutely.
Franklin’s staff has been able to consistently bring in talent and they’ve shown a keen eye for finding several diamonds in the rough.
But, it still has to improve. Namely in the following areas:
-Consistently land top-five ranked in-state talent
-five-star recruits have to perform like five-star players
-Land top-five D-Line recruit
-Land top-five O-Line recruit and they live up to their billing
-Finish in the top eight in recruiting every year
Here’s how Penn State Football has fared on the recruiting trail since 2015 (all rankings are from 247 Sports).
Penn State
Average class rank: 17
No. of 5*: 5 (Miles Sanders – No. 21 overall, Micah Parsons – No. 5 overall, Justin Shorter – No. 8 overall, Ricky Slade – No. 27 overall, Brandon Smith 5* – No. 18 overall)
No. of Top 10 O-Line: 8
No. of Top 10 D-Line: 3
And here’s how they did with in-state talent during the same time period.
Top 5 PA Recruits PSU Landed
2015: 4 of 5
2016: 2 of 5
2017: 2 of 5
2018: 2 of 5
2019: 2 of 5
2020: 2 of 5
2021: 1 of 5
Since they’re in Penn State’s conference and in the Nittany Lions’ division, let’s see how Ohio State has fared since 2015.
Ohio State
Average class rank: 6
No. of 5*: 21
No. of Top 10 O-Line: 14
No. of Top 10 D-Line: 13
Top 5 OH Recruits OSU Landed
2015: 3 of 5
2016: 2 of 5
2017: 3 of 5
2018: 3 of 5
2019: 2 of 5
2020: 2 of 5
2021: 4 of 5
For more comparison, how have the two most dominant programs in the nation done since 2015?
Clemson
Average class rank: 10
No. of 5*: 20
No. of Top 10 O-Line: 11
No. of Top 10 D-Line: 14
Alabama
Average class rank: 2
No. of 5*: 31
No. of Top 10 O-Line: 17
No. of Top 10 D-Line: 23
Anyone spots any differences?
More importantly, can Penn State make the leap in recruiting to approach these levels?