The Athletic's Stewart Mandel is a preseason Penn State believer, placing the Nittany Lions atop his too-early top 25 for 2025. "I'm skeptical they can actually pull it off," Mandel writes, "but on paper, James Franklin's team deserves that status given how many players are returning."

Sports ranked Penn State as the No. 4 team for next fall. The Nittany Lions were ranked behind newly crowned champions Ohio State, Texas and Alabama. The returning trio of Drew Allar, Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen seems to make a strong case that Penn State should be viewed as a team within college football’s upper echelon.

Thanks to returns from Drew Allar, Nick Singleton, Kaytron Allen, Dani Dennis-Sutton, Zane Durant, and a whole bunch of others, Penn State is slated to b