Penn State among top tier of new ESPN projections in 2024

One of the foremost predictors of college football success has returned for the 2024 season. The ESPN Football Power Index has been released with its first iteration since the conclusion of the 2023 campaign.

And, Penn State is among its featured programs.

The Nittany Lions, coming off a 10-2 regular season with a Peach Bowl loss to Ole Miss, are No. 6. They fall behind only top-ranked Georgia, Oregon, Texas, Ohio State, and Alabama ahead of the 2024 season. Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Missouri round out the top 10.

To better understand the rankings and where Penn State stands within them, though, ESPN details its analytics system.

From the story:

“First things first: The FPI is a power rating that tracks each team’s strength relative to an average FBS squad. Teams are rated on offense, defense and special teams, with the values representing points per game.

“Those numbers are then used to simulate the season schedule 20,000 times, including the conference championships and the CFP bracket, simulating the selection process using an algorithm that mimics the way the committee typically picks teams. Finally, once we have those results, we can say how often each team wins its conference, makes the playoff and achieves other milestones.”

Penn State checks in with a 9.1 score on offense, a 10.0 for its defense, and 0.7 for special teams. Its total FPI comes out, then, to 19.8. Its season projections are for a record of 10.1 wins against 2.3 losses. The Nittany Lions have a 7.1 percent opportunity to go unbeaten. They’re projected to have a 99.1 chance to win six or more games. They have a 22.2 percent to win the Big Ten, 59.1 to make the playoff, 13.3 to make the national championship game, and a 6.6 percent chance to win it.

The initial takeaways

Penn State is in a top tier

That’s demonstrated as the Nittany Lions are one of seven teams that are projected to have a 20 percent or better chance at a first-round bye in the 2024 College Football Playoff. They’re also one of just seven programs with a better than 50 percent opportunity to make the playoff, joining Georgia, Oregon, Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Alabama.

While that lineup or probability doesn’t completely align with the first FPI rankings, it does reflect a consistent recognition of Penn State among the nation’s top teams according to ESPN’s index heading into the 2024 campaign.

The schedule shakes out well for Penn State

Evaluating the Nittany Lions’ schedule again features a familiar top face in 2024. Ohio State, coming in at No. 4, represents the toughest test on the slate and one of the nation’s top games this season (more on that, later).

But, the rest of the usual suspects aren’t there this year. Among the traditional Big Ten opponents, Penn State won’t play No. 12 Michigan. Accordingly, the Nittany Lions’ next-toughest tests are No. 18 Southern Cal and Washington, which has dropped from national runner-up in 2023 to 31st after losing head coach Kalen DeBoer to Alabama.

The middle of the schedule is meatier than recent seasons, though. Still in the top 50, Penn State gets West Virginia (No. 35), Wisconsin (39), UCLA (40), and Maryland (46).

Penn State vs. Ohio State is a doozy

From a front-facing standpoint, ESPN ranks it as the fourth-biggest game of the 2024 college football season. Only Ohio State at Oregon is considered bigger in the Big Ten this year. And, to the point about the rest of the schedule, no other Penn State game has that distinction.

In fact, Ohio State at Penn State is considered the highest “leverage” game in all of college football this season. A feature that offers an indication of how much the game’s outcome impacts probability for national championships, playoffs, and conference title implications, it’s undeniably huge.

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