Penn State an outsider in early ESPN College Football Power Index
Valentine’s Day delivered the first advanced look at college football’s SP+ landscape ahead of the 2023 season. Two months later, ESPN’s College Football Power Index (FPI) joined the fray. And once again, Penn State is among the game’s most relevant programs.
The difference?
As opposed to the Nittany Lions’ place rounding out the top five in Bill Connelly’s SP+ model, the FPI has the program sitting comparatively lower. With a score of 17.5, Penn State holds down the No. 10 spot in the rankings.
As a reminder of ESPN’s proprietary FPI formula, the outlet explains it thusly:
“FPI is our season-long ratings and projections system. In the preseason it relies on past performance on offense and defense, returning and transfer production, and past recruiting data for players on the roster to form a rating. We then use those ratings to simulate the season 20,000 times, resulting in our projections.”
Projecting Penn State 2023 season
Using the ratings to project how Penn State might fare ahead of the 2023 season, a few themes emerge.
Ohio State is considered the most heavily favored team in all of college football to win all of its games, holding a 34.3 percent chance of doing so. Further, the Buckeyes are given the best odds nationally of winning their conference (71.2 percent), reaching the playoff (82.2 percent), reaching the national championship game (57.2 percent), and winning it all (36.7 percent).
Given the perceived dominance of Ohio State, the impact extends to the conference’s next two teams in the FPI. As laid out in the piece, that plays as an advantage to the SEC in two ways:
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• “While Ohio State is the best team in the nation, FPI believes the SEC boasts teams Nos. 2, 3, and 4 in Alabama, Georgia, and LSU. By contrast, Michigan and Penn State — the Big Ten’s next-best teams — come in at No. 6 and No. 10.”
• “The conference’s top two teams are in separate divisions and aren’t scheduled to play each other. That means Alabama and Georgia won’t beat up on each other until the conference championship game at the latest, while only one of Ohio State, Michigan, or Penn State can reach the Big Ten championship game.”
Harkening back to head coach James Franklin’s long-held belief of a competitive disadvantage for the three power programs in the Big Ten’s East Division, the early projections are that of a predictably challenging road for the Nittany Lions to reach the final four-team CFP before expansion in 2024.
Only Wisconsin stands among other Big Ten programs with a place in the advanced FPI Top 25. The Badgers check in at No. 20 ahead of the debut season for Luke Fickell.
