2010 CFN Program Rankings - No. 9 Penn State

CFN's 2010 Five-Year Program Rankings and Analysis ... No. 9 Penn State

Preview 2010 - No. 9 Penn State

CFN Five-Year Program Analysis
 
2010 CFN Five-Year Program Analysis
- Bottom 20 | No. 81 to 100 | No. 61 to 80
- No. 41 to 60 | No. 21 to 40 | No. 11 to 20
- No. 10 Alabama | No. 9 Penn St | No. 8 Virginia Tech
- No. 7 Georgia | No. 6 LSU | No. 5 Oklahoma
- No. 4 Ohio State | No. 3 Texas | No. 2 Florida | No. 1 USC

- Expert Football Predictions from ATS Consultants - Absolutely Free.
- Get Tickets For Your Team, Any Game

Every new coach realistically needs five years to make a program his. He doesn't always get that much time, often being asked to turn things around right away. Five years allow a coach to go through an entire recruiting cycle, get comfortable in the position, and implement everything he'd like to do. With that in mind, we have created our CFN Five-Year Program Analysis (it used to be three years, but we supersized it) highlighting off-the-field factors like the Academic Progress Report (do the players go to class) and the players drafted by the NFL (a huge selling point to recruits), to attendance (it pays the bills) and wins, wins, wins. On-field success ends up being all that matters, so that's where the focus lies. One note, the totals for each team might not add up because we have listed the total number of wins and losses for the categories, while the Bad Wins and Losses and Elite Wins and Losses might be scored differently (two home losses against 3-9 teams would be scored as a 3).

Quick Explanation of Scores
- Attendance: Home attendance average over the last five years divided by 10,000. Avg. Score: 4.37
- APR: The most recently released Academic Performance Rate. 90th to 100th percentile (best) gets a 10, 1st to 10th percentile (worst) gets a 1 Avg. Score: 5.84
- Quality Wins: Wins over FBS teams that finished with a winning record. Avg. Score: 9.62
- Total Wins: Wins over FBS teams. Avg. Score: 29.25
- Players Drafted: Number of players drafted. Avg. Score: 9.62
- Conference Win %: Conference winning percentage times 10. Avg. Score: 4.96
- Elite Win Score: Wins over FBS teams that finished with two losses or fewer, or on the road, at a neutral site, or in a bowl over teams that finished with three losses or fewer. Add an additional 0.5 for an Elite Win over a two-loss team on the road. Avg. Number: 1.25
- Bad Loss Score: Losses to teams that finished with three wins or fewer or any loss to a non-FBS team. Subtract each loss from the overall total. Subtract an additional 0.5 for each Bad Loss at home. Avg. Number: 2.03
- Elite Losses: Losses to teams that finished with two wins or fewer. Take 0.25 of the number. Avg. Number: 5.02
- Bad Wins: Wins over teams that finished with three wins or fewer or any win to a non-FBS team Avg. Number: 10.83
- Detailed Explanation of the Scoring System and Categories

9. Penn State

2010 Total Score: 105.73
2009 Ranking: 13

Program Analysis: What? But Joe Paterno is still the head coach! How can Penn State be ranked in the top ten?!

After hitting the skids and ranking 48th in 2005, Penn State has gone on a tear with 51 wins in the last five years (48 against FBS teams) and a terrific Big Ten winning percentage of .725. No matter how it’s getting done or who’s really doing the coaching, the Nittany Lions are in big bowl games year after year and they’re holding up the conference’s reputation by going 4-1 in bowl games over the last five years and 2-0 against the SEC.

The resurgence has been fueled by an influx of talent with 24 players drafted over the last five seasons, while the always top-shelf Attendance and APR Scores always help. The 18 Quality Wins are tied for the fewest among anyone in the top 15, and the Elite Win Score of two is the lowest of anyone in the top 13, but the overall results are still fantastic. Out of the 13 losses in the last five seasons, seven were against teams that finished with two losses or fewer.

Attendance Score: 10.73
2005: 104,859
2006: 107,567
2007: 108,917
2008: 108,254
2009: 107,008

APR Score: 9

Draft: 24
2006: Tamba Hali, Michael Robinson, Calvin Lowry, Alan Zemaitis, Tyler Reed, Ethan Kilmer
2007: Levi Brown, Paul Posluszny, Jay Alford, Tony Hunt, Tim Shaw
2008: Dan Connor, Justin King
2009: Aaron Maybin, Derrick Wiliams, Deon Butler, Rich Ohmberger, A.Q. Shipley
2010: Jared Odrick, Sean Lee, Navorro Bowman, Andrew Quarless, Mickey Shuler, Josh Hull

FBS Wins: 48

Quality Wins: 18
2005: Central Michigan, at Northwestern, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Florida State (Orange Bowl)
2006: at Purdue, Tennessee (Outback Bowl)
2007: Wisconsin, at Indiana, Purdue, Texas A&M (Alamo Bowl)
2008: Oregon State, at Wisconsin, at Ohio State
2009: Temple, at Northwestern, LSU (Capital One Bowl)

Elite Wins: 2
2005: Ohio State
2008: at Ohio State

Bad Losses: 0

Elite Losses: 7
2005: None
2006: at Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin
2007: Ohio State
2008: USC (Rose Bowl)
2009: Iowa, Ohio State

Bad Wins: 12
2005: at Illinois
2006: Youngstown State, Illinois
2007: FIU, Notre Dame
2008: Coastal Carolina, at Syracuse, Michigan, Indiana
2009: Akron, at Illinois, Eastern Illinois

Conf. Score: 7.25
2005: 7-1
2006: 5-3
2007: 4-4
2008: 7-1
2009: 6-2