But we have heard non stop on this board that not making the playoffs is a failure of a season. Well Penn State in the last 30 seasons would have made the four team play off twice while having 5 losing seasons in that same period. Yet people here talk like Penn State is some elite program that should be making the playoffs every year. Heck Penn State not even top 10 winning percentage (15th) over that period.
I'm more concerned about recent performances rather than the past 30 years. I bet Georgia's winning percentage in the past 30 years isn't that much higher than PSU's, and yet they're now one of the two or three best programs at the moment.
Also, if there had been a 12 team playoff as of 2016, like there is at every other level of college football, PSU would've made it in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023. Also, where does PSU rank in winning % since 2016? My guess is that it's well in the top ten. Also, while I know that bowls don't carry the same significant as they used to, PSU still has played in five BCS bowls since the 2016 season.
Right now, I don't consider PSU to be elite like Bama, UGA, OSU, and maybe a few other programs are. But it's definitely in that next tier. Things ebb and flow very quickly in college football. As recently as three years ago, Clemson was elite, but now they're not. Until Smart became head coach at UGA, they weren't elite. Florida under Spurrier and Mayer were elite and now they're not.
Because of the demographic changes in this country and the fact that PSU is in the middle of a state and region that have lost a lot of people to the Southeast, it never may be elite. However, it's still a program that has consitently produced 10 and 11 win seasons for the past eight years while playing in one of the toughest, if not most tough, divisions in college football.
