FOX analyst Joel Klatt is all-in on Penn State heading into the 2025 season

“Way-too-early” has been the phrase of the week in college football. After Ohio State beat Notre Dame in Monday night’s College Football Playoff National Championship Game, fans and media immediately looked ahead to the 2025 season with plenty of way-too-early rankings. And after James Franklin’s impressive roster retention this offseason, it shouldn’t be surprising to see Penn State near the top. 

Junior superstar defensive end Abdul Carter is heading to the NFL, but Franklin was able to keep Drew Allar, Nicholas Singleton, Kaytron Allen, Zane Durant, Zakee Wheatley, and plenty of other draft-eligible stars from his 2024 roster that ended its season in the CFP semifinals with a last-second Orange Bowl loss to Notre Dame. 

There are still weaknesses on the roster, like at wide receiver after Harrison Wallace III and Omari Evans both fled for the transfer portal. However, the Nittany Lions wide receiver room had underachieved all season and was shut out of the stat sheet entirely by the Fighting Irish. The transfer portal additions of Kyron Hudson from USC and Devonte Ross from Troy might not be enough to offset the portal departures at receiver and the loss of tight end Tyler Warren, who is heading to the NFL, but they were enough for FOX’s Joel Klatt to overlook the Nittany Lion’s biggest deficiencies. 

Klatt has Penn State ranked No. 1 in the country heading into 2025, and that decision may not be so crazy. Penn State’s three losses in 2024, a 13-3 campaign, were to the teams that finished No. 1, 2, and 3 in the final AP poll (Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Oregon), and all three of those teams lost their starting quarterbacks. While it's hard to be overly confident in Allar after a late-game interception that cost the Nittany Lions in the Orange Bowl, Will Howard, Riley Leonard, and Dillon Gabriel have all expended their final years of eligibility. Plus, Texas, the only other team that finished ahead of Penn State in the final AP poll, is losing its QB, Quinn Ewers, to the NFL after another CFP semifinal appearance. 

Klatt isn’t the only analyst who is high on the Nittany Lions heading into 2025, but he’s certainly the highest. For the most part, the Vegas oddsmakers agree. Heading into 2025, Penn State has the fifth-best odds to win the national championship according to FanDuel Sportsbook. If Ohio State or Oregon land a top QB in the transfer portal, which seems unlikely now, then maybe Klatt would change his mind, but for right now, he's all-in on James Franklin and Penn State.