Blue White Illustrated

LAST WORD N A T E B A U E R | N B A U E R @ B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M ransfers! Coaching upheaval! Player development! Someone call Joe Friday, because this hotly debated situation demands a clearing of the hyperbole, speculation and soothsaying experts. Or it's time for, as Friday used to say, "Just the facts, ma'am." Heading into spring practice, the Penn State football program will have 61 scholarship players who have been in the program for at least one completed semester. Through the span of four recruiting classes dating back to 2012, those 61 scholarship players have been evaluated at the high school level to be worthy of 190 combined stars by Rivals.com, av- eraging out to 3.21 stars per scholarship. Of those 61 scholarship players, 18 were redshirts during the fall of 2015. Take away those 18 redshirts and the Nittany Lions' total returning star allot- ment falls by 60, leaving 130 total stars to be shared by the 41 remaining schol- arship players who have seen at least one snap in their careers. The Nittany Lions' star average among active play- ers, then, falls to 3.17 per player. The 23 Nittany Lions with junior or senior eligibility for the 2016 season re- ceived 72 of those 130 stars. The sen- iors? There are nine, and they received 25 stars. That works out to an average of 2.78 stars per senior. Further, only 25 of Penn State's re- turning scholarship players have ever started a game in their collegiate ca- reers. And of those 25, only 18 have more than three starts on their resume. All of this is to say, from a pure num- bers, experience and talent perspective, by any reasonable metric, this is not a particularly robust Penn State program at this moment. Nor should it be, espe- cially given its recent history. In the midst of the scandal, Penn State's Class of 2012 finished with the No. 51 ranking in the country. The Nit- tany Lions secured 19 commitments, of which only two were from four-star players. The following year, Bill O'Brien's first full class finished 43rd nationally, even though it included one five-star player (Christian Hackenberg) and three four-star players (Adam Breneman, Garrett Sickels and Brendan Mahon). The abrupt coaching transition from O'Brien to James Franklin, in which no assistants were retained, resulted in a 2014 class that finished No. 24. And fi- nally, last February, Franklin and com- pany welcomed the nation's 15th- ranked class, their first full effort as a staff. The recruiting results of the past two years have been met with enthusiasm and excitement from the Penn State fan base. But at some point along the way, the Lions' two-year downturn appears to have been forgotten. That's unfortu- nate, because it has had consequences, and Franklin is living with them. No matter how much spectators and pun- dits might like to believe otherwise, the numbers don't lie. Fourteen wins, 12 losses, and not much in the way of a signature victory beyond an overtime bowl win against a middling Boston College team to cap the 2014 season. Some perspective is needed here, and one of the programs that has been cited as an appropriate benchmark happens to be in the Nittany Lions' very division. I'm speaking of Michigan and its dy- namic new head coach, Jim Harbaugh. In his first year at the helm, Harbaugh once again demonstrated his coaching acumen, guiding the Wolverines to a 10- 3 record including signature wins against BYU, Northwestern and Florida. But while there's no question Har- baugh is a great coach, the situation he stepped into in Ann Arbor was drasti- cally different from the one Franklin in- herited two years ago. A simple compar- ison of the two teams' scholarship ros- ters demonstrates as much. When the Nittany Lions head to the Big House next September to open their Big Ten season, their 23-player contin- gent of juniors and seniors will be going up against an opponent with 38 such players. What's more, those Michigan juniors and seniors combined to receive 136 stars coming out of high school – 64 more than their Penn State counterparts earned. Looking only at the numbers, disre- garding reputation and expectation, it's only logical to conclude that Penn State should be considered a massive under- dog. It's unfair, at best, to expect victo- ry. The reality is that these two pro- grams are in different situations right now. The operative word, of course, being "now." Although star ratings are hotly debat- ed on a per-player basis, a reading of the broader numbers makes a persuasive case that the current expectations are unfair. This isn't a quick fix. The numbers do, however, hint at a future that is trending upward. We'll know soon enough whether Franklin is able to bring Penn State's football program the success it craves. Until then, Nittany Lion followers sim- ply need to be reminded of the facts. ■ Written in the stars T

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