Column: The good, bad news of Penn State's place on Top 5 jobs poll

Gauging the best head coaching jobs in college football makes for easy banter.

In the wake of the long-awaited opening of the Southern Cal position this week, an updated assessment of the game’s landscape would have to include perennial College Football Playoff participants like Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State.

But what of the traditional powerhouses? Where should Texas and Southern Cal, Michigan and Penn State, Oklahoma and Florida State fit in?

The Athletic looked to answer some of those questions this week, not by relying on its outstanding staff of college football insiders, but by turning to the people who live it. In an excellent, comprehensive article released Wednesday, a swath of 100 polled “athletic directors, head coaches, assistant coaches, recruiting coordinators, analysts, and staffers” were provided a ranking system, one through five, to help clarify the nation’s top five jobs.

In all, 18 programs managed to crack the list of receiving at least one vote. Nine different programs received at least one first-place vote, and 14 of the 18 received at least one second-place vote, and all but two received at least one third-place vote, creating the suggestion that, at least in the minds of the voters polled, the club of the game’s elite doesn’t have to be as limited as the playoff has produced in its limited lifespan.

Without giving away the paywall-protected goods, so to speak, Penn State’s place within the survey is of particular interest in this space.

And, folks, despite the long, proud tradition of the Nittany Lion football program, one that has included notable recent successes, the perception isn’t especially glowing. Rather, garnering just two total votes, out of a possible 500, Penn State barely earned mention as one of the nation’s top five head coaching jobs in college football.

Those votes, one for the second-best job in the game and another for the fifth-best job, landed the Nittany Lions’ at 16th on the list, edging out only slightly the one-vote-apiece mentions of North Carolina and Northwestern while trailing the Seminoles at No. 15, who garnered four total votes.

To get out in front of pushback that only the game’s current juggernauts vacuumed up all of the votes, the top 10 finishers in the poll tell a different story with Texas tallying 55 total votes, including 11 first-place selections and Southern Cal picking up 64 total votes, five of which were first-place picks. Moreover of the Trojans, which represents a program of particular interest to Penn State fans right now given its purported interest in Nittany Lion head coach James Franklin, their 64 total votes, 21 of which were for fifth, make them the fourth-highest vote-getter behind Alabama, Ohio State, and Georgia.

So what are we to make of Penn State’s spot and, maybe more important, what are the lessons to learn from the programs that populate the top of the list?

A sharp, of-the-moment clarification of how the program is perceived against its peers among the game's stakeholders, its relative shortcomings offer both criticism and, importantly, reasons for optimism for its future. In a world of constant benchmarking, the Nittany Lions might not be who and what they want to be at this juncture, but their hurdles to getting there are in no way insurmountable.

In fact, while recruiting advantages, NIL opportunities, geographic location, physical facility infrastructure, and recent successes were just some of the many, many justifications for inclusion presented by the polled participants, one passage in the story offers a distinction that the best programs, including No. 1 Alabama, enjoy.

“The real reason is that everyone who touches the football program at Alabama is dedicated to one thing and one thing only: winning the national title,” the story reads. “The program gets what it needs and what it wants. If Nick Saban wants to add five analysts whose only job is to dissect every time an opposing coach has punted in the past 20 years, then he’s not going to have to fight anyone to get those jobs created. Everyone at Alabama works toward the same goal. It wasn’t always this way.”

The question for Penn State University, its athletic department, its football program, and its boosters and fans is whether or not the same can be said of its alignment of priorities and commitment to not just keeping pace, but going so far as to lead, in the game.

While the likes of Ohio State, Georgia, Texas, and LSU all share built-in territorial recruiting advantages in some of the most talent-rich states in the sport, Clemson’s successes double-down on those of Alabama. Citing the “incredible institutional support” for the program as one of its premiere advantages, the Tigers’ ascent into one of the best jobs in the game has coincided with an implacable commitment to its success.

Off to a 2-0 start to the season with this weekend’s showdown with unbeaten No. 20 Auburn up next, the Nittany Lions have more pressing concerns than a 30,000-foot view of the program’s health. But if the broad-picture perspective of Penn State football - a program with enough cache and appeal to at least be considered a top-five job by two of 100 polled - is to offer any instruction, it is in the gap it faces toward reaching the heights of its national peers.

Playing catch-up to the game’s current standard-bearers in a variety of avenues, only an impassioned, all-in commitment from Penn State’s university and athletic administration, its fan and donor base, and the community at large will clear the way for its inclusion as a true destination program in college football. But at a program with success both traditionally and in the current landscape of the game, its path forward isn’t in any way guaranteed in either direction positively or negatively.

Far from being precluded from creating that perception for itself by any inherent, impossible-to-overcome challenges separating it from its peers, that direction is very much to the whole of Penn State’s choosing.

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