Record vs top 10 since 2000

[PSU0622]

Saw on Twitter that Penn State has only beaten a top 10 team 4 times since 2000. Not sure why there is so much focus on Franklin's record vs top 10 teams when he has two of those wins. What are the realistic expectations for a program like this?

 

[NittanyIllinois]

Saw on Twitter that Penn State has only beaten a top 10 team 4 times since 2000. Not sure why there is so much focus on Franklin's record vs top 10 teams when he has two of those wins. What are the realistic expectations for a program like this?

We have beaten 2 top-5 teams since we joined the Big Ten in 1993.

Arizona in 1999, and OSU in 2016.

Think about that. Purdue has 2 top-5 wins in the past 5 weeks.

As a program, we have not won the big games. Period. That dates back decades. Franklin is really poor at this, but Joe's last 15 years weren't terribly stellar in this department, either.

As for expectations? We should be winning roughly half of games vs. top-10 teams, IMO.

 

[Option Bob]

We have beaten 2 top-5 teams since we joined the Big Ten in 1993.

Arizona in 1999, and OSU in 2016.

Think about that. Purdue has 2 top-5 wins in the past 5 weeks.

As a program, we have not won the big games. Period. That dates back decades. Franklin is really poor at this, but Joe's last 15 years weren't terribly stellar in this department, either.

As for expectations? We should be winning roughly half of games vs. top-10 teams, IMO.

Valid concerns about the PSU program. However, if you're going to credit Purdue for its win over a top-5 Iowa, then you really should give a similar nod to Penn State which was trouncing that same squad 17-3 when its only QB was injured. Iowa has since shown that #4 ranking to be quite an error.

But, it's also true that Penn State didn't win that game. Purdue did. So are you then willing to accept all things Purdue?

Will you join the chorus of anti-Franklin posters if Penn State followed exactly Purdue's trend of 7-6, 6-7, 4-8, and 2-4 under Brohm while boasting of those 2 top-5 upsets?

Will you also criticize the recruiting of the Purdue coach who can beat 2 top-5 teams yet cannot recruit top-10 talent?

Penn State, like just about every other program not named Alabama, loses to Top-5 teams more often than it beats them. Otherwise, Penn State would be itself a top-5 program, provided it didn't follow the rest of Purdue's history.

I can admit to being totally frustrated with losing these close, winnable games. As a fan for nearly 60 years, I find it more and more difficult to invest as much emotion as I do every Saturday only to see yet another failed 3rd-and-1 fail.

Maybe all the critics on this board are right and James Franklin will never guide the Lions to the Promised Land (i.e., the national title). But to expect a program that really hasn't been an annual Top 10 contender since perhaps 1999 to start beating teams ranked above it 50% of the time is unrealistic.

I am totally guilty of wearing prescription blue-and-white glasses. I sometimes not so secretly wish Penn State were more like Alabama and Ohio State than it is. Would I prefer our players to have a 3.1 GPA rather than a 3.1 YPC? Sadly, I admit that no, I wouldn't.

It was great to read stories about Mike Reid playing a concert in Carnegie Hall or Dennis Onkotz taking a physics exam the morning of a game. But it was really only great because the team was 11-0. I doubt I would have been as happy to read those stories if PSU was 3-7.

My point here is that in this modern era, winning with a accomplished student-athletes is much much more difficult than it was 50+ years ago. James Franklin still adheres for the most to the Grand Experiment ideals, and with that adherence comes terms that struggle to be yearly playoff contenders.

 

[NittanyIllinois]

Valid concerns about the PSU program. However, if you're going to credit Purdue for its win over a top-5 Iowa, then you really should give a similar nod to Penn State which was trouncing that same squad 17-3 when its only QB was injured. Iowa has since shown that #4 ranking to be quite an error.

But, it's also true that Penn State didn't win that game. Purdue did. So are you then willing to accept all things Purdue?

Will you join the chorus of anti-Franklin posters if Penn State followed exactly Purdue's trend of 7-6, 6-7, 4-8, and 2-4 under Brohm while boasting of those 2 top-5 upsets?

Will you also criticize the recruiting of the Purdue coach who can beat 2 top-5 teams yet cannot recruit top-10 talent?

Penn State, like just about every other program not named Alabama, loses to Top-5 teams more often than it beats them. Otherwise, Penn State would be itself a top-5 program, provided it didn't follow the rest of Purdue's history.

I can admit to being totally frustrated with losing these close, winnable games. As a fan for nearly 60 years, I find it more and more difficult to invest as much emotion as I do every Saturday only to see yet another failed 3rd-and-1 fail.

Maybe all the critics on this board are right and James Franklin will never guide the Lions to the Promised Land (i.e., the national title). But to expect a program that really hasn't been an annual Top 10 contender since perhaps 1999 to start beating teams ranked above it 50% of the time is unrealistic.

I am totally guilty of wearing prescription blue-and-white glasses. I sometimes not so secretly wish Penn State were more like Alabama and Ohio State than it is. Would I prefer our players to have a 3.1 GPA rather than a 3.1 YPC? Sadly, I admit that no, I wouldn't.

It was great to read stories about Mike Reid playing a concert in Carnegie Hall or Dennis Onkotz taking a physics exam the morning of a game. But it was really only great because the team was 11-0. I doubt I would have been as happy to read those stories if PSU was 3-7.

My point here is that in this modern era, winning with a accomplished student-athletes is much much more difficult than it was 50+ years ago. James Franklin still adheres for the most to the Grand Experiment ideals, and with that adherence comes terms that struggle to be yearly playoff contenders.

I certainly respect your views. However.....

We are not upholding ourselves to any academic standards that Michigan isn't upholding. We really need to get over this idea that we're only failing to compete because we have higher standards. It's just not accurate. We're largely recruiting from among the same pool of kids as Ohio State, Michigan, and others. Obviously we're not beating OSU for the elite kids -- or at least not many of them. And that has virtually nothing to do with academics, if I had to venture a guess.

That excuse needs to go away. We are not Stanford or Northwestern. We're competing with the same CFB powers for the same kids. We just need to get more of them. Period.

We are not losing games because we handicap ourselves with academic criteria that our near-peers aren't following. We're losing games because our coaching staff is less effective at (1) consistently recruiting elite talent, and (2) making in-game adjustments and calls to put the players in the best position to succeed.

 

[MarshallGoldberg]

Since 2000, Pitt has five wins against top 5 teams (four of them against teams ranked #2 -- the same number PSU has against all top 10 teams.) Clearly PSU has been consistently a somewhat better program than Pitt over that time, which really shows how uniquely bad Penn State has been in big games.

 

[Jerry]

I certainly respect your views. However.....

We are not upholding ourselves to any academic standards that Michigan isn't upholding. We really need to get over this idea that we're only failing to compete because we have higher standards. It's just not accurate. We're largely recruiting from among the same pool of kids as Ohio State, Michigan, and others. Obviously we're not beating OSU for the elite kids -- or at least not many of them. And that has virtually nothing to do with academics, if I had to venture a guess.

That excuse needs to go away. We are not Stanford or Northwestern. We're competing with the same CFB powers for the same kids. We just need to get more of them. Period.

We are not losing games because we handicap ourselves with academic criteria that our near-peers aren't following. We're losing games because our coaching staff is less effective at (1) consistently recruiting elite talent, and (2) making in-game adjustments and calls to put the players in the best position to succeed.

Though you and Bob disagree in part, I find myself agreeing with much of what the both of you so articulately and respectfully posted.

 

[Option Bob]

I certainly respect your views. However.....

We are not upholding ourselves to any academic standards that Michigan isn't upholding. We really need to get over this idea that we're only failing to compete because we have higher standards. It's just not accurate. We're largely recruiting from among the same pool of kids as Ohio State, Michigan, and others. Obviously we're not beating OSU for the elite kids -- or at least not many of them. And that has virtually nothing to do with academics, if I had to venture a guess.

That excuse needs to go away. We are not Stanford or Northwestern. We're competing with the same CFB powers for the same kids. We just need to get more of them. Period.

We are not losing games because we handicap ourselves with academic criteria that our near-peers aren't following. We're losing games because our coaching staff is less effective at (1) consistently recruiting elite talent, and (2) making in-game adjustments and calls to put the players in the best position to succeed.

Good points, and I do agree with you. I likely didn't state my POV very well; I do not believe that PSU is closer to Stanford than to Florida wrt academics. I also do not subscribe to the idea that PSU has "higher standards" than other programs. I certainly did not state such beliefs above.

Nonetheless, I do believe Franklin has tried to adhere to the now cliche idea of the Grand Experiment. And I think he is serious about requiring his players to attend class. I might be naive also to believe such requirements could very well deter a few 5-star level athletes from wanting to attend Penn State.

As to why we lost to Ohio State so often: you're right. The Buckeyes have talent at all positions and even on their bench. There's a reason why each August, one can likely predict the 4 playoff teams correctly. Only a handful of programs (AL, GA, OSU, Clemson, perhaps OU) have all the factors necessary to reach the playoff.

I like James Franklin and wish he would be as successful at PSU as Nick Saban is at Alabama. I don't watch Bama games as often as I do Penn State's, so I don't know whether he makes as many questionable decisions as Franklin does. I do know that Saban has an amazing staff with numerous ex-HCs among it. I doubt the PSU staff is anywhere close to the level of expertise that Saban has assembled.

But I do disagree that the PSU players are not put in the "best position to succeed." I've seen too many dropped interceptions or dropped passes that would absolutely impact the result of the game. And I would say such drops outnumber bad playcalls (calls which James doesn't;t even make himself).

I wish I were smart enough to know what exactly is wrong with Penn State's program right now. I see an OL that can't run block, a QB that is erratic, a FG kicker who can make one from 50 then miss one from 35, a defense that plays great 90% of the game but then gives up the game in that other 10%.

The HC is responsible for the issues on the team. If Franklin is incapable of making the changes necessary, than he is not a very good coach. He seems to be trying, at least to my old eyes. I think he needs to retain his staff rather than continue to fire and replace. I also think he faces obstacles that no other program has to face, factors that are not within his control.

Anyway, I didn't mean to be so wordy; I guess losing is getting to me.

 

[Wallace Breen]

Saw on Twitter that Penn State has only beaten a top 10 team 4 times since 2000. Not sure why there is so much focus on Franklin's record vs top 10 teams when he has two of those wins. What are the realistic expectations for a program like this?

Headlines like that are complete rubbish. Being ranked in the top five team is contrived and without meaningless. The proof is in the pudding. Much better to look at what opposing teams look like at the end of the year as opposed to a biased snap shot.

 

[fastlax16]

I certainly respect your views. However.....

We are not upholding ourselves to any academic standards that Michigan isn't upholding.

Franklin also isn’t accomplishing any less than his counterpart at Michigan… more big ten titles, more wins against osu, more division titles, more ny6 appearances, more ny6 wins, Harbaughs never won more than 10 games at UM, Franklins won 11 thrice.

If Franklins tenure here looked like Harbaughs at UM people would be equally displeased outside of the what have you done for me extremely lately aspect considering they were 2-4 last season. There’s no one who would trade Michigan’s results 2015-present with ours.

 

[NittanyIllinois]

Headlines like that are complete rubbish. Being ranked in the top five team is contrived and without meaningless. The proof is in the pudding. Much better to look at what opposing teams look like at the end of the year as opposed to a biased snap shot.

Well, that's always a mixed bag and will be for about everybody.

If you look at post-season rankings, then I'm sure we have some wins over teams who finished high but weren't high when we beat them.

Just the same, we got wins over highly ranked teams that didn't finish that way. See 1999 Arizona, for example.

That generally balances out.

Wins over top-5/top-10 teams is an imperfect metric, but a useful one in determining how a team performs in big games against teams that are (or believed to be -- fairly or not) among the best in the country at that moment.

 

[danvillenit]

Good points, and I do agree with you. I likely didn't state my POV very well; I do not believe that PSU is closer to Stanford than to Florida wrt academics. I also do not subscribe to the idea that PSU has "higher standards" than other programs. I certainly did not state such beliefs above.

Nonetheless, I do believe Franklin has tried to adhere to the now cliche idea of the Grand Experiment. And I think he is serious about requiring his players to attend class. I might be naive also to believe such requirements could very well deter a few 5-star level athletes from wanting to attend Penn State.

As to why we lost to Ohio State so often: you're right. The Buckeyes have talent at all positions and even on their bench. There's a reason why each August, one can likely predict the 4 playoff teams correctly. Only a handful of programs (AL, GA, OSU, Clemson, perhaps OU) have all the factors necessary to reach the playoff.

I like James Franklin and wish he would be as successful at PSU as Nick Saban is at Alabama. I don't watch Bama games as often as I do Penn State's, so I don't know whether he makes as many questionable decisions as Franklin does. I do know that Saban has an amazing staff with numerous ex-HCs among it. I doubt the PSU staff is anywhere close to the level of expertise that Saban has assembled.

But I do disagree that the PSU players are not put in the "best position to succeed." I've seen too many dropped interceptions or dropped passes that would absolutely impact the result of the game. And I would say such drops outnumber bad playcalls (calls which James doesn't;t even make himself).

I wish I were smart enough to know what exactly is wrong with Penn State's program right now. I see an OL that can't run block, a QB that is erratic, a FG kicker who can make one from 50 then miss one from 35, a defense that plays great 90% of the game but then gives up the game in that other 10%.

The HC is responsible for the issues on the team. If Franklin is incapable of making the changes necessary, than he is not a very good coach. He seems to be trying, at least to my old eyes. I think he needs to retain his staff rather than continue to fire and replace. I also think he faces obstacles that no other program has to face, factors that are not within his control.

Anyway, I didn't mean to be so wordy; I guess losing is getting to me.

I think you make some good points. As far as the erratic QB, inconsistent kicker, etc. it is likely they aren’t any better than what you see. It doesn’t make Franklin a bad coach because #14 isn’t an NFL QB.
I think we need better recruiting and do does Franklin. That’s why he is pushing so hard