something overlooked re: PSU and spending lately

[ApexLion]

Less than 10 points separate the top two institutions in the final Learfield Directors' Cup fall standings for Division I with North Carolina leading the way with 422.50 total points.

North Carolina took home the women's soccer title and earned top 10 finishes in women's field hockey and men's cross country.

Rounding out the top five is Stanford in second with 413.00 points, along with – Penn State (third, 335.00 points), BYU (fourth, 311.50 points) and Virginia (293.50 points).

Krafty wants to win this. No doubt he also makes a $1M bonus if he does.

 

[MtNittany]

I would hope he'd want to win it for more than $$$. Apparently there's a million dollars stuffed behind the cushions of every couch in Old Main anyway.

 

[TheBigUglies]

It is interesting how they are spending money on new buildings, stadium upgrade, new coaches(I know athletic budget is separate from overall budgets) etc. But out of the other side of the mouth we are hearing budget problems, commonwealth campuses may close, yada yada yada...

 

[MtNittany]

It is interesting how they are spending money on new buildings, stadium upgrade, new coaches(I know athletic budget is separate from overall budgets) etc. But out of the other side of the mouth we are hearing budget problems, commonwealth campuses may close, yada yada yada...

The future of upper education COULD mirror the future of college football. The strong stay strong, but the weak get left behind. PSU will survive. I don't see how all the current branch campuses and other failing former teacher colleges do though.

If they would get back to teaching teaching and nursing and add in trades, that could be a path forward I guess.

 

[PSUFTG]

PSU Learfield cup standings over the last 20+ years:

PSU typically does better in the Fall (and, seemingly every year, adds another 100 points from the wrestling program in the winter. Yeah!!), and drops off in the Spring. Shouldn't surprise anyone, if they have any knowledge of the overall sports programs.
(Last year they were 6th after fall.... finished 23rd for the year. So, a little better positioning going into winter)

I don't know how many people care about Learfield, but better to be #1 than #30.
Aside from the last 2 years under Barbour, last year was PSU's worst ever, so a lot of room for improvement (FWIW, Increased ICA spending has thus far been inversely proportional to Learfield placement - which should, again, surprise no one given where the money goes).
The big downward driver under Barbour was the large decline in women's sports points. Why? Who knows?

Last year's final numbers:
23.24FinalDI (PDF) - National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics
Penn State’s No. 23 Finish in Learfield Cup Standings Not So Krafty | State College, PA

From the article linked above:

TIM CURLEY (average 14th):
2003 – 5th;
2004 – 13th;
2005 – 20th;
2006 – 15th;
2007 – 21st;
2008 – 9th;
2009 – 19th;
2010 – 11th;
I don't know why there are no numbers for 2011. Took the info from the attached article
2012 – 12th.

DAVE JOYNER (average 8th):
2012 – 12th;
2013 – 6th;
2014 – 5th.

SANDY BARBOUR (average 20th):
2015 – 8th;
2016 – 20th;
2017 – 8th;
2018 – 12th;
2019 – 13th;
2020 – Covid;
2021 – 39th;
2022 – 43rd.

PATRICK KRAFT (average 19th):
2023 – 15th;
2024 – 23rd.

As more and more schools drop "non-revenue" sports moving forward, the dynamics of "Learfield" will likely change a lot.

 

[BobPSU92]

Less than 10 points separate the top two institutions in the final Learfield Directors' Cup fall standings for Division I with North Carolina leading the way with 422.50 total points.

North Carolina took home the women's soccer title and earned top 10 finishes in women's field hockey and men's cross country.

Rounding out the top five is Stanford in second with 413.00 points, along with – Penn State (third, 335.00 points), BYU (fourth, 311.50 points) and Virginia (293.50 points).

Krafty wants to win this. No doubt he also makes a $1M bonus if he does.

Kraft: I have to spend money to make money.

 

[SleepyLion]

Kraft: I have to spend money to make spend money.

fify

 

[PSUFTG]

PSU Learfield cup standings over the last 20+ years:

PSU typically does better in the Fall (and, seemingly every year, adds another 100 points from the wrestling program in the winter. Yeah!!), and drops off in the Spring. Shouldn't surprise anyone, if they have any knowledge of the overall sports programs.
(Last year they were 6th after fall.... finished 23rd for the year. So, a little better positioning going into winter)

I don't know how many people care about Learfield, but better to be #1 than #30.
Aside from the last 2 years under Barbour, last year was PSU's worst ever, so a lot of room for improvement (FWIW, Increased ICA spending has thus far been inversely proportional to Learfield placement - which should, again, surprise no one given where the money goes).
The big downward driver under Barbour was the large decline in women's sports points. Why? Who knows?

Last year's final numbers:
23.24FinalDI (PDF) - National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics
Penn State’s No. 23 Finish in Learfield Cup Standings Not So Krafty | State College, PA

From the article linked above:

TIM CURLEY (average 14th):
2003 – 5th;
2004 – 13th;
2005 – 20th;
2006 – 15th;
2007 – 21st;
2008 – 9th;
2009 – 19th;
2010 – 11th;
I don't know why there are no numbers for 2011. Took the info from the attached article
2012 – 12th.

DAVE JOYNER (average 8th):
2012 – 12th;
2013 – 6th;
2014 – 5th.

SANDY BARBOUR (average 20th):
2015 – 8th;
2016 – 20th;
2017 – 8th;
2018 – 12th;
2019 – 13th;
2020 – Covid;
2021 – 39th;
2022 – 43rd.

PATRICK KRAFT (average 19th):
2023 – 15th;
2024 – 23rd.

As more and more schools drop "non-revenue" sports moving forward, the dynamics of "Learfield" will likely change a lot.

About as one would have expected, PSU's final standings for 2024-25 were 16th (5th in Big Ten)
Learfield Directors' Cup final 2025 Division I standings revealed - On3

 

[Hotshoe]

Less than 10 points separate the top two institutions in the final Learfield Directors' Cup fall standings for Division I with North Carolina leading the way with 422.50 total points.

North Carolina took home the women's soccer title and earned top 10 finishes in women's field hockey and men's cross country.

Rounding out the top five is Stanford in second with 413.00 points, along with – Penn State (third, 335.00 points), BYU (fourth, 311.50 points) and Virginia (293.50 points).

Krafty wants to win this. No doubt he also makes a $1M bonus if he does.

One of the reasons the B1G wants both, UNC and VA in the B1G.

 

[LB99]

About as one would have expected, PSU's final standings for 2024-25 were 16th (5th in Big Ten)
Learfield Directors' Cup final 2025 Division I standings revealed - On3

Interesting considering the football team finished in the top 4. Wrestling won a national championship….again. Women’s volleyball won a national championship. Hockey made the Frozen Four for the first time in school history. Men’s lacrosse made the Final Four again. Baseball seems to be in an upward trajectory finally.

 

[SleepyLion]

One of the reasons the B1G wants both, UNC and VA in the B1G.

B1G could have had Stanford when the PAC was raided.
I'm not sure winning this moves the needle that much.

 

[MtNittany]

Interesting considering the football team finished in the top 4. Wrestling won a national championship….again. Women’s volleyball won a national championship. Hockey made the Frozen Four for the first time in school history. Men’s lacrosse made the Final Four again. Baseball seems to be in an upward trajectory finally.

The Synchronized Swimming team needs work. That's all I'll say.

 

[Woodpecker]

The Synchronized Swimming team needs work. That's all I'll say.

 

[Tom McAndrew]

It's nice when PSU does well. That said, the devil is in the details.

There are 5 countable sports that are included in the points for each school. These are:

Women: soccer, basketball, volleyball
Men: basketball, baseball

Then, the schools get to use the next highest 14 sports scores, regardless of gender.

Of the countable sports, PSU does well in WSOC, and in WVB. Unfortunately, they have not done well for some time in WBB, MBB, and Baseball, which hurts them in the overall competition. This past year, they did great in WVB and Wrestling, and made the semifinals in Football, Men's Ice hockey, and MLAX.

It appears that for this past season, PSU also picked up points (beyond those sports listed above) in:

Spring: MVB
Winter: Fencing, WGYM, MGYM, WHock, M T&F
Fall: W XC, M XC

So basically, for PSU to be in contention, the have to maintain their success in Wrestling, WVB, MHock, and MLAX, bump up their performance in several of the other teams that scored points (just not enough), and then some combo of returning to some degree of normalcy in WLAX, FH, and then come up with one or more sports (Softball may be the closest; MSOC is also a possibility) to score points. Of the countable sports, PSU has to improve in MBB, WBB, and Baseball. It's not unattainable for PSU to get to the top of the competition, but WBB has been trending down for some time, baseball seems on the rise but that's from the bottom of the mountain, and MBB it's tough to figure out which way it's trending.

 

[BobPSU92]

We suck.

 

[Psumatt85]

It's nice when PSU does well. That said, the devil is in the details.

There are 5 countable sports that are included in the points for each school. These are:

Women: soccer, basketball, volleyball
Men: basketball, baseball

Then, the schools get to use the next highest 14 sports scores, regardless of gender.

Of the countable sports, PSU does well in WSOC, and in WVB. Unfortunately, they have not done well for some time in WBB, MBB, and Baseball, which hurts them in the overall competition. This past year, they did great in WVB and Wrestling, and made the semifinals in Men's Ice hockey and MLAX.

It appears that for this past season, PSU also picked up points (beyond those sports listed above) in:

Spring: MVB
Winter: Fencing, WGYM, MGYM, WHock, M T&F
Fall: W XC, M XC

So basically, for PSU to be in contention, the have to maintain their success in Wrestling, WVB, MHock, and MLAX, bump up their performance in several of the other teams that scored points (just not enough), and then some combo of returning to some degree of normalcy in WLAX, FH, and then come up with one or more sports (Softball may be the closest; MSOC is also a possibility) to score points. Of the countable sports, PSU has to improve in MBB, WBB, and Baseball. It's not unattainable for PSU to get to the top of the competition, but WBB has been trending down for some time, baseball seems on the rise but that's from the bottom of the mountain, and MBB it's tough to figure out which way it's trending.

Didn’t we get points in football?

 

[Tom McAndrew]

Didn’t we get points in football?

we did. i thought i had listed them in the previous paragraph (as teams that won or were in the semis), and thus didn't need to list them. But, I see that I didn't have them in the paragraph. smh. I'll correct my post.

 

[PSUFTG]

There is some worthiness to having the "Director's Cup", but there is also a lot about the "Director's Cup" that would merit not giving it much weight.

The way the rankings can skew things to make a program look good - based on sponsoring a lot of sports that no one, including the vast majority of universities, cares about - is a big misleading factor.
Using just PSU as an example:
PSU's ranking benefits greatly from "no one cares" sports programs, and to be fair, so do the rankings of many other schools.

Just some examples:
PSU received 60 points for Men's Volleyball
PSU finished 5th in Men's Volleyball.
Other P5 level athletic programs that have Men's Volleyball?
USC, UCLA, Stanford, BYU, Purdue, and Ohio State. That's it.
PSU gets a big chunk of points for finishing 5th. They thumped Saint Francis and NJ Tech Institute. Super. Right?

Fencing picked up 72 points for finishing 7th
P5 Level Programs with Fencing teams?
Ohio State, Boston College, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Duke, and Stanford. Northwestern as well - but only for women.
And Penn State gets 72 points for finishing 7th. The same number of points that an Elite 8 team in the NCAA basketball tourney gets,

Some others:
25 points for finishing 9th in Women's Ice Hockey (with 6 P5 level programs in the nation)
45.5 points for finishing 25th in Women's Gymnastics (out of 34 P5 level programs)
and 73 points for finishing in 5th place on the Men's side (only 10 P5 programs left)

About 1/3 of their points came from accomplishments of finishing among the worst of their P5 level peers. But it is not something that just impacts Penn State, to be sure.

Some of the other "top programs" got boatloads of points for similar mediocre or worse finishes - in sports like Women's Water Polo, Beach Volleyball, and Women's Rowing - sports with only a handful of participants.


A much better measure of on-field success - if one truly wants to measure "success", as opposed to how many "no one cares sports" do we sponsor - would be to look at how does a sports program rank wrt the placements of each of their sports program within their conferences (ie, among their peers).
One thing that has been trending at PSU is a huge drop off in women's sports' success (that started the last few years under Sandy Barbour) and more recently a barbell effect (a small group of programs ranking very highly, and a bunch that are cellar-dwellers - PSU has a large number of worst-in-class or close to it programs in the Big Ten) under Kraft.
One of the benefits to "barbelling" things is that fans tend to completely ignore/forget about large numbers of cellar-dwellers - and focus (positively) on a few high-achievers. So barbelling makes for better PR.

What is the "right" goal for an athletic department? Who knows - and folks will have a wide variety of defensible opinions on the matter, for sure. But "Director's Cup" - unless you take the time to filter out some of the nonsense - is a very flawed metric in many ways.

 

[ChandlerPearce58]

Speaking about costs....my final term at PSU i paid $400 for tuition and $400 for room and board....so at 3 terms/yr then total cost was $1200 for tuition and $1200 for room and board.....$2400 per academic year

 

[JohnJumba]

I paid for plotchie battles and flooded halls and stairwells.

 

[LB99]

Speaking about costs....my final term at PSU i paid $400 for tuition and $400 for room and board....so at 3 terms/yr then total cost was $1200 for tuition and $1200 for room and board.....$2400 per academic year

And what year was that?

 

[razpsu]

And what year was that?

Before 1983. Trimesters ended 1984 I believe.

 

[LB99]

Before 1983. Trimesters ended 1984 I believe.

Based on the tuition, I think it was well before 1983. As it is 1983 was 42 years ago.

 

[bbrown]

B1G could have had Stanford when the PAC was raided.
I'm not sure winning this moves the needle that much.

+1. It's not that big of a deal anymore. We just went through what is arguably the best season for PSU Athletics and we aren't close to the top2. Maybe if the Women's and Men's. Bball teams get their **** together there's a chance...but then it's PSU and Basketball so yea...no chance.

 

[LBUfanatic]

It is interesting how they are spending money on new buildings, stadium upgrade, new coaches(I know athletic budget is separate from overall budgets) etc. But out of the other side of the mouth we are hearing budget problems, commonwealth campuses may close, yada yada yada...

You simply have to look at the athletic department budget as completely separate and distinct from the balance sheet of the University itself. And, there are a great number of universities — public and private — which are struggling financially.

 

[JohnJumba]

You simply have to look at the athletic department budget as completely separate and distinct from the balance sheet of the University itself. And, there are a great number of universities — public and private — which are struggling financially.

But why?