Penn State has its highest preseason ranking in the James Franklin Era. Here’s how.

Penn State’s long climb back to national relevance under James Franklin has been uneven at times. His regime started with consecutive 7-6 seasons, an unexpected Big Ten title run that came up just short of the four-team College Football Playoff at the time, and seven seasons thereafter of falling just short of getting over the hump.

Then last season’s run happened.

The season felt gloomy after a Nov. 2 loss to Ohio State, which has become an annual occurrence since that 2016 season. But a light switched on and Penn State won four of its next five games, which included a hard-fought loss to Big Ten champion Oregon. If not for some late-game misfortune against Notre Dame in their CFP semifinal, the Nittany Lions could have been playing for a national title in what had seemed like a lost season two months earlier.

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Entering this season, Penn State is No. 2 in the Associated Press preseason poll, the highest ranking since 1997, when the Nittany Lions were preseason No. 1. Penn State was also ranked No. 3 in USA Today’s preseason coaches poll. It’s the first time in more than 40 years in which the Nittany Lions have been ranked in the preseason top 10 in three straight years after starting the 2023 season at No. 7 and 2024 at No. 8.

Although Franklin and his players have largely downplayed the preseason hype around the program, there’s no denying this is the most anticipated season in the coach’s tenure.

How last year’s team, one that captured 13 wins, the most in program history, came to fruition dates back to the 2022 recruiting class.

Headlining the group, quarterback Drew Allar, was the Nittany Lions’ prized five-star recruit out of Medina, Ohio, and the third overall prospect in 247Sports’ 2022 recruiting class. Running back Nicholas Singleton of Shillington, Pa., and edge rusher Dani Dennis-Sutton of Owings Mills, Md., were the other five-star recruits who joined the Nittany Lions from that class.

Those three make up the core of this iteration of Penn State football, one that has expectations of the program’s first outright national championship since 1986. Singleton recalls the group creating a group chat ahead of arriving to campus.

But there are many more beyond those three, like defensive tackle Zane Durant, offensive tackle Drew Shelton, interior offensive lineman Olaivavega Ioane, running back Kaytron Allen, and others who have developed into starters with NFL potential.

“I think we had the best recruiting class ever, man,” Durant said during Penn State media day earlier this month. “It’s so surreal, bro. We came in on a visit, just seeing each other and moving in together, and seeing everybody develop and chase their goals is actually crazy to see, because we came in at different starting points, some guys ahead, some guys weren’t. We just stayed true to it, stayed true to the process, and just kept going.”

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Added Ioane: “That group embodied exactly what Penn State talks about, whether it’s [being] hardworking, being competitors. We came in here from Day 1, we started competing against each other, and that built everything up until now, just everybody working at it. We’re all really close off the field, too.”

The 29-player recruiting class, three of whom were transfers, already has five NFL players: Abdul Carter (2025 first-round pick), Chop Robinson (2024 first-round pick), Kevin Winston Jr. (2025 third-round pick), Hunter Nourzad (2024 fifth-round pick), and Mitchell Tinsley (undrafted free agent). Other significant contributors, like backup quarterback Beau Pribula (now at Missouri), wide receiver Omari Evans (Mississippi), and offensive lineman JB Nelson (Kansas State), have since moved on to other schools, but they played key roles in last season’s deep CFP run.

Just 12 players remain from that original class, but the impact on the program has been obvious. Singleton and Allen have been three-year starters. Durant, Dennis-Sutton, and Ioane have been key contributors the last two seasons, and Shelton started last year for the first time.

“There was obviously a lot of hype around us at the time [of our recruiting class],” Downingtown West grad Shelton said. “Obviously, that hype doesn’t really matter until you do something with it. But my freshman camp coming in, seeing a bunch of guys running with the ones and the twos and seeing what they’re doing, that was kind of when we knew that this class was going to be special.”

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Penn State doesn’t have to look far to see how its journey could turn out. The Big Ten has won back-to-back national titles, breaking a nine-year gap between championships, but looking deeper at Ohio State and Michigan’s rosters, the parallels to Penn State are stark.

On Michigan’s 2023 title team, it returned quarterback J.J. McCarthy, the running back tandem of Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards, four of the five starting offensive linemen, and nine of 12 players on defense who played 400 snaps or more in 2022.

Ohio State last season returned running back TreyVeon Henderson, four of five starting offensive linemen, nine of its 11 starting defensive players, and added quarterback Will Howard, running back Quinshon Judkins, and safety Caleb Downs in the transfer portal, all of whom played big roles in the Buckeyes’ title run.

The Nittany Lions return Allar, running backs Singleton and Allen, four of five starting offensive linemen, and just five starters defensively, although several backups played meaningful snaps throughout Penn State’s playoff run last year.

Michigan made the CFP in 2021 and 2022, losing in the semifinal, before breaking through in 2023. Ohio State made the CFP in 2022, lost to Michigan in 2023, and returned to the playoff in 2024 (despite losing to the Wolverines again) before going on its title run.

For Penn State, last season was the program’s first in the CFP, but losses to Michigan and Ohio State in 2022 and a loss to the Buckeyes in 2023 prevented potential playoff berths. The expanded 12-team playoff certainly helped the Nittany Lions, but the core group has eclipsed 10 or more wins for the first time in a three-year stretch since 1980-82.

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“I think personally speaking, there was a lot of things I wanted to accomplish here, both individually and as a team, that, you know, I felt like that I didn’t accomplish through my first three years,” Allar said on his decision to return for his senior season. “I can’t speak for everybody that decided to come back, but there are probably some similarities to my decision. … Just urgently working as hard as I can and being as diligent as possible for me to become the player that I want to be.”

Allar’s intention to return coincided with offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, who was reportedly a finalist for the West Virginia head coaching job. Kotelnicki, who ran Kansas’ prolific offense and Buffalo’s before that, raised Allar’s floor as a player and maximized the skill sets of tight end Tyler Warren, Singleton, and Allen.

This season, Kotelnicki has transfers Trebor Peña, Devonte Ross, and Kyron Hudson in a revamped corps of receivers. Warren was the leading receiver last year by a large margin, while the team’s pass catchers were much maligned, led by Evans, Harrison Wallace, and Liam Clifford, who combined for zero catches in the CFP semifinal loss to Notre Dame. In fact, no receiver caught a pass in that 27-24 loss.

After losing Wallace and Evans to the portal, Penn State sought receivers who were “veterans that have already produced in college football,” Franklin said. And those three wideouts will be counted on to change the narrative of the receiving corps, along with returners Tyseer Denmark, a Philly native, and Clifford.

“I felt like they had a great team,” said Peña, who had 941 yards and nine receiving touchdowns last season at Syracuse. “They had a lot of guys returning, obviously, Drew’s returning. I felt like it just made the most sense for me. I can tell by the way our group works that everybody’s hungry, everybody’s ready to work, and nobody is complacent at all. We’ve got a great group of guys, and I’m happy I’m able to contribute to that.”

Added Hudson, who transferred from Southern Cal: “I think just coming here to a school like this made the opportunity even better. Having the receiver corps we have, the brotherhood that we have here … I feel like I made the greatest decision I ever made.”

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Hudson, Ross, and Peña could be the missing pieces for Penn State’s offense, along with Allar’s ability to take the next step. Tight ends Khalil Dinkins, Luke Reynolds, and Andrew Rappleyea should also factor in as weapons for Kotelnicki’s offense as well.

How far Penn State goes in 2025 will rest on Allar’s shoulders, as the potential 2026 first-round pick has a 23-6 record as a starter. He could become the Nittany Lions’ highest-drafted quarterback since Kerry Collins went fifth overall to the Carolina Panthers in 1995.

“I think the biggest thing is we need more playmaking at the wide receiver position for us to go where we want to go, in critical moments, in critical games,” Franklin said earlier this month. “Drew having more people around him making plays for him, I think will be really valuable.”

Time will tell.

Staff writer Greg Finberg contributed to this article.