{"id":207797,"date":"2025-09-07T14:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T14:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/207797\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T14:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T14:17:10","slug":"penn-state-gets-bad-news-from-espns-fpi-after-fiu-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/207797\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn State gets bad news from ESPN’s FPI after FIU win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penn State is not the only Power Five football team who struggled with a lesser opponent on Saturday. But, it\u2019s also not one of the runs that crushed its competition in Week 2. And, that has the Lions dropping a bit in ESPN\u2019s Football Power Index<\/strong><\/a> ahead of Week 3. First, some background on what that is for those who might be unfamiliar with it:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Football Power Index (FPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team\u2019s performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. Projected results are based on 20,000 simulations of the rest of the season using FPI, results to date, and the remaining schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Head coach James Franklin\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> team fell from No. 5 to No. 7 in the latest update. The Lions\u2019 long-term outlook in 2025 took a hit, as well. Here are how things changed from Week 2 to Week 3:<\/p>\n

Regular season record projection: <\/strong>10.3-2.1 \u27a1\ufe0f 9.9-2.4<\/p>\n

Win-out percentage: <\/strong>5.9 percent \u27a1\ufe0f 3 percent<\/p>\n

Win the Big Ten percentage: <\/strong>24.2 percent \u27a1\ufe0f 14.2 percent<\/p>\n

Chances of making the CFP:<\/strong> 58.5 percent \u27a1\ufe0f 54.5 percent<\/p>\n

Chances of making the title game:<\/strong> 14 percent \u27a1\ufe0f 12.1. percent<\/p>\n

Penn State percent chance to win it all: <\/strong>7.3 percent \u27a1\ufe0f 6.3 percent<\/p>\n

Assessing the rest of the 2025 Penn State season<\/p>\n

What changed? It\u2019s obvious that the computer data system was not impressed with how Penn State performed throughout a sluggish win at Beaver Stadium. Beyond that, the Lions\u2019 White Out game opponent, Oregon<\/strong><\/a>, shot up six spots to No. 1. Another team PSU will play this fall, Ohio State<\/strong><\/a>, held firm at No. 3. And, Alabama<\/strong><\/a> and USC<\/strong><\/a> also moved up after wins to push Franklin\u2019s team down toward the back half of the top 10.<\/p>\n

The good news for Penn State is that the data changes weekly and so do the rankings. A strong performance against Villanova won\u2019t hurt matters moving forward. But, it goes without saying that the outcome of the Sept. 27 meeting with the Ducks will tell us a lot of what we need to know about this team moving forward. The FPI still favors the Lions to win that game. It also projects them to be favored i every upcoming matchup but the Ohio State game. That does make us question the updated win total projection, of course. But, that\u2019s where their data says after Week 2.<\/p>\n

Become part of the Penn State community with Blue-White Illustrated. Start for $1 your first week, and get a complimentary year of The Athletic included with your membership.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penn State is not the only Power Five football team who struggled with a lesser opponent on Saturday.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":207798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,1317,1315,1316,1718,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-207797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-regwall","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115163446963895394","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}