Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1538407
S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 5 2 1 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M This year has rekindled memories of that earlier era. The Nittany Lions were ranked No. 1 in Phil Steele's 2025 pre- season rankings while placing second in both Athlon Sports' and Lindy's pre- season magazines. In early August, the coaches slotted Penn State at No. 3 and AP pollsters picked the Nittany Lions No. 2 behind only Texas. Computers like Penn State, too. The Nittany Lions have a 63.8 percent chance to make the College Football Playoff and a 7 percent chance to win the national championship according to ESPN Ana- lytics, with the latter figure ranking fifth nationally behind Texas (24.1 percent), Georgia (17.9), Ohio State (10.8) and Al- abama (10.8). And for what it's worth, the Nittany Lions came out on top when Sports Illustrated recently asked the Grok AI chatbot to rank the nation's top 10 teams. To longtime fans of the program, the surge in excitement represents an overdue return to normalcy. This, after all, is what preseason felt like in the 1980s and '90s, minus the AI chatbots. To James Franklin, however, the new normal looks a lot like the old normal. The Nittany Lions' 12th-year head coach is less concerned with the national dis- course than with the mood of his own team and the community that surrounds it. And in that respect, little has changed. "The expectations in the Lasch Build- ing are always high," Franklin said at Penn State's media day Aug. 2. "The expecta- tions in Beaver Stadium are always high. The expectations in this community are always really high. That's a big reason why I came here. That's a big reason why our players chose here." 'That's What You Sign Up For' Franklin pointed to the Nittany Li- ons' clash with Notre Dame in the Or- ange Bowl last January as evidence of the high standard he and his players have been asked to uphold. The Irish scored 17 fourth-quarter points, pulling ahead after a late interception and rallying for a 27-24 victory that set up a date with Ohio State in the CFP championship game. The season-ending defeat left Penn State with a 13-3 record. It marked the most wins in a campaign in the program's 137-year history, and it included an ap- pearance in the Big Ten title game, but it didn't end with the Nittany Lions hoist- ing a trophy. To a fan community that had been waiting nearly four decades for the chance to celebrate a national champion- ship, it was a deeply unsatisfying resolu- tion. And while there was an understand- able impulse to fixate on the fateful final minute of the Orange Bowl, that narrow focus tended to obscure the 959 minutes of football that had preceded it. "We were a drive away from playing for the national championship last year," Franklin said. "Ninety-nine percent of the programs in the country would be jacked about that season and how it went, and I don't know if that was necessarily the case here. We won 13 games. We were a few points and a few drives away from playing for the national championship, and people were pissed. "That's what you sign up for when you come to Penn State. Those expectations are always really high. We had been to a bunch of New Year's Six games before that, and a lot of programs would love to go to a New Year's Six game or win a New Year's Six game. We've done that fairly consistently, and I wouldn't necessarily say it feels that way." Staying Focused If the Nittany Lions feel differently at the end of the 2025 season, it'll be partly because they welcomed back a number Preparing for his third season as Penn State's starter, Drew Allar was recently listed by Phil Steele as the No. 6 draft- eligible quarterback in the country. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL