College Football Analyst Names Penn State Best Team Entering 2025 Season

Yahoo

07-05-2025

The James Franklin era is well underway for the Penn State Nittany Lions and is approaching its 12th season. It has been a mixed bag of results to this point, though they have finished every year but one (2020) with a winning record and a bowl game to boot.
In 2024, Penn State went 8-1 in Big Ten conference play, taking home the conference title in the process and punching its ticket to the first rendition of the expanded College Football Playoff. The Nittany Lions won their first two matchups of the playoffs before losing to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the Orange Bowl.
The success the team had last year and the improvements that Franklin has made to the roster have the hype surrounding the program at an all-time high. It is so palpable that Joel Klatt, the leading college football analyst for Fox Sports, believes the team is the best in the country entering 2025.
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"They're following the blueprint of the teams that have just won the national championship," Klatt said, via Fox Sports. "You look at what Michigan did in 2023. You look at what Ohio State in 2024. Both of those teams had a core group of veteran players stay. They stayed and they won a championship.
"Both of these teams had veterans at quarterback. They had veterans on both sides of the ball. They were excellent at the line of scrimmage. They had chips on their shoulders from the way they were bounced in the postseason in years prior.
"All of that is true about Penn State. They're returning their quarterback, both running backs (Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen) and four players on the offensive line."
It is a blueprint with a pedigree of success, and the Penn State Nittany Lions are following it to a tee. Behind quarterback Drew Allar, the sky is the limit for the program, and the hype surrounding it is justified.