Penn State Nittany Lions quarterback Drew Allar puts his helmet on during a practice session outside Holuba Hall. / Dan Rainville / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
James Franklin delivered a tart line recently regarding the preseason affection his Penn State football team is receiving.
“No one — no one — cares about preseason rankings,” Franklin said. “Like, I’m not going to frame the preseason rankings and put it in my basement in the man cave. No one cares. No one cares.”
And yet, the hype train is barreling toward Penn State, which opens the 2025 season Aug. 30 against Nevada. How many ways can we say the Nittany Lions are national championship contenders before they even play a game? Plenty.
Our Penn State Best Bets of the Week explores the hype. We won’t tell you how to feel about it.
Every season gets a preseason darling with a pre-determined narrative. For 2025, that’s Penn State. All the components are there: veteran roster, elite offensive talent, third-year starting quarterback, Jim Knowles and the head coach who finally might reach the summit.
Penn State opens the season ranked third in the Coaches Poll, its highest preseason slot since 1999. The Nittany Lions likely will be there in the first AP Top 25 as well. FOX Sports’ Joel Klatt placed Penn State atop his preseason top 25.
Penn State placed five players on Bruce Feldman’s “Freaks List,” the most of any team in the country. ESPN projects the Nittany Lions with an astonishing 13 picks in the 2026 NFL Draft, including three first-rounders. No wonder ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg also listed Penn State high on his “impatience index,” essentially writing a now-or-never story line.
The last time Penn State had this type of attention, LaVar Arrington was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1999. Fittingly, Arrington’s son is a freshman linebacker for the Nittany Lions this season, wearing the No. 11 that his father turned into a Penn State brand. Is that some sort of cosmic forecast? We’ll see.
Penn State said that Beaver Stadium’s temporary bleachers will be completed and inspected by the end of next week. But the university didn’t address whether it will console acrophobic fans who are sitting up there. No doubt the bleachers will be stable; they’re just really, really high.
Nevertheless, Franklin called them a great idea. “Why didn’t we do that in the past?” Franklin said to reporters after a Penn State practice. He was referring to the sets of temporary bleachers that will be located in concourse space on the stadium’s east side. After all, unused space is unearned revenue.
Andy Kotelnicki and Jim Knowles, Penn State’s offensive and defensive coordinators, are different but equally compelling characters. They both seem to revel in mad-scientist diagnoses, though Kotelnicki does so in declarative voice while Knowles whispers. How Penn State evolves this season under their direction is a primary story line.
Kotelnicki, in Year 2 with the program, made an interesting comment at the team’s local media day. He wants the offense to look like “real art” this season. What does that mean? Check out the story for more.
Meanwhile, the hushed-tone Knowles is moving deliberately through training camp to install his first Penn State defense. And players said Knowles’ defense is the most fun they’ve played in at Penn State.
The Wall Street Journal profiled Knowles, who worked on Wall Street before becoming college football’s premier defensive coordinator.
Want to learn more about Knowles? Jon Sauber of the Centre Daily Times wrote about how the former Ohio State coordinator can help Penn State win its biggest games.
Fans should expect Penn State’s Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen to be even better this season, writes Mike Poorman of Statecollege.com.
Read more on Sports Illustrated
