Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1538407
2 0 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 5 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M In Rare n Rare Form orm PSU is getting more attention than it has in decades, but James Franklin knows all about great expectations M AT T H E R B | M AT T. H E R B @ O N 3 . C O M On the eve of his 12th season at Penn State, Franklin is currently the Big Ten's second-longest-tenured coach, trailing only Iowa's Kirk Ferentz. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL T o a lot of Penn State football watchers, this year just feels dif- ferent. There's buzz, and then there's the kind of buzz the Nit- tany Lions have been generating over the past seven months, the kind that's usu- ally reserved for the likes of Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama and a handful of other perennial superpowers. It's been more than 25 years since the Lions have been hailed as real-deal national championship contenders. There've been a few seasons over that quarter-century span — 2009, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2023 and 2024 — when they've been ranked in the bottom half of the As- sociated Press top 10 to start out, marking them as a team to which attention must be paid. There have also been a few seasons — 2005 and 2016 spring readily to mind — in which they've crashed the party af- ter starting out with virtually no national acclaim. But you'd have to go back to 1999, when they were ranked No. 3 in the preseason AP poll and LaVar Arrington was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated's season preview magazine, to recall a time when they were viewed as a genuine threat to finish on top.