agree with this. we are not mediocre. categorizing this as mediocre is really not helpful, and sets the bar too low when psu does eventually make a coaching change. we need someone who can take it from 10-2 to 12-0. for that, you basically need someone who has already demonstrated that by taking a program to the playoffs and/or national title game. preferably more than once
I think people are largely talking past each on language which causes conflict. It's all about context.
On the whole of CFB, is PSU 'mediocre?' No.
It's fair to say that PSU is roughly in the 90% percentile of CFB.
But if you put the comments in context, there are not far off. As an example, there are NFL players that get described as mediocre or bad or average. On the whole, there is not a single person in the NFL that fits that description. Even practice squad guys are all in the top 1% of football players. But we judge people in context, against their peers. Player X is a "mediocre NFL player." Again, no NFL player is a mediocre athlete, but a player can be mediocre in the context of other NFL players.
And so we judge JF and PSU, not amongst the aggregate of CFB, but amongst the peers. JF is paid as a tier 1 coach and so he is judged against other tier 1 coaches. Looking at the 2023 season. PSU beat 10 mediocre football teams and were not very competitive against the 3 teams who were NOT mediocre. I don't think it's crazy to note that JFs teams have not been that well coached and he makes head-scratcher decisions far too often. When asked, he'll lean on "the analytics" not taking into account that his team has not performed well on the type of play the analytics were analyzing. Not much seems to have changed on this front in 10 years.
So, in summary, PSU and JF are not a mediocre football program. But JF, in the context of his salary and top CFB programs, is pretty mediocre.
If we throw out JFs first 2 years for "sanctions," and we throw out 2020, and for any unranked season, we assume PSU was ranked 26, then PSU's average ranking during JF's tenure is 12-13. So, with those adjustments, PSU is about a 90% percentile team, but there is a significant difference between 90 and 95-100.
One bit of comparison. JF's ceiling so far is finishing 7th(twice) with another finish at 9. In Paterno's final decade, which included the dark years, he still managed 3 top 10 finishes, including a #3. (Does anyone think Joe recruited better in his final decade than JF has?) As I've said before, the average of JF's results would be accepted by the fan base, if he ever managed to get over the hump. My criticism of JF is not the average, but the evidence that suggests he is not capable of competing with his peer level of coach/program and therefore will only ever win the B1G if his peers all have a down year.
