In Las Vegas on Wednesday for the Big Ten Conference media days, Penn State head coach James Franklin doubled down on embracing the high expectations for Nittany Lion football in 2025. And in doing so, he went all in on his players and coaches.
“This is the best combined personnel that we’ve had at Penn State,” said Franklin, who has been 101-42 since arriving in Happy Valley in 2014, including a 34-8 record and a pair of College Football Playoff victories over the past three seasons.
“And when I talk about personnel, I am talking about players and staff from a depth standpoint, from a talent standpoint and from an experience standpoint. So, we’re very excited about that.”
The Nittany Lions are coming off a 13-3 season that saw them within what Franklin termed “one drive away from playing for the national championship.” Now, 38 days before Penn State hosts Nevada in Beaver Stadium in its season-opener on Aug. 30, many media outlets and experts have Franklin’s team as the prohibitive preseason No. 1.
For good reason. Penn State returns 14 starters, including Big Ten preseason honorees quarterback Drew Allar, running back Nick Singleton and edge Dani Dennis-Sutton. That veteran trio represents 20% of all such honorees, a level equaled only by defending national champion Ohio State.
Add in new defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, the highest-paid assistant in all of college sports after leading the Buckeyes’ top-ranked defense in 2024, and perhaps the best running backs coach in college football, Stan Drayton — and what Franklin said from the podium in Mandalay Bay casino makes the high-stakes No. 1 proposition of 2025 not just the roll of the dice.
“Our two new coaches, Jim Knowles and Stan Drayton,” Franklin said on Wednesday, “are veteran coaches with head coaching and championship level experience.”
It has been awhile since Penn State was ranked No. 1. In fact, the last time the Nittany Lions were ranked No. 1 at all was Oct. 18, 1997 — the day they beat, 16-15, unranked Minnesota in Beaver Stadium, but due to the narrow victory, they dropped to No. 2. That was 10,140 days ago.
Of course, Penn State was No. 1 twice when it really counted at the end of the season, as the Nittany Lions were ranked No. 1 and national champions in both 1982 and 1986. That’s two generations of PSU fans.
Penn State’s polling high-water mark under Franklin came in 2017, when the Nittany Lions were No. 2 in The Associated Press poll for two weeks.
EXPECTATIONS? TO BE FRANK(LIN) WITH YOU
Franklin understands that with such statements and such preseason promise, come great expectations at Penn State. The Nittany Lions were voted the Big Ten Conference’s No. 1 team in a preseason poll, edging out Ohio State in the annual Cleveland.com rankings voted on by media members.
After making his “best combined personnel” statement in Vegas, Franklin delivered a 249-word, 96-second soliloquy on the continued expectations for Penn State football. Here it is (the bold-faced subheads are mine):
NATIONALLY: “There’s a ton of conversations that are happening nationally. And we embrace that. We’ve earned that, based on what we’ve been able to do and what we have coming back. There are a lot of people who are excited on a national level, talking about us.”
LOCALLY: “But the reality is, when it comes to the Lasch football building and when it comes to the local [community], these are always the expectations at Penn State.”
2024: “We had what a lot of people would consider a really good season last year. We were a game away from playing for the national championship. You can actually make the argument that we were a drive away from playing for the national championship. But, it didn’t feel that way. Right? Because the expectations at Penn State are really high.”
EMBRACE and APPRECIATE: “We embrace that. I came to Penn State understanding that. Our players did as well. So the conversations I think you’re talking about are happening nationally and we appreciate that. But it hasn’t changed close to home and it hasn’t changed internally in our program — because those are always our expectations.”
TBH: “Let’s also be honest. It’s a great conversation, but who really cares about preseason rankings? They mean nothing. It’s a good argument to have and everybody has fun with it. But the only rankings that matter are the ones that happen at the end of the season. And that’s what we’re concerned about. And the only way we’ll do that is by handling our business today.”
