The hype is building for Penn State ahead of the 2025 NCAA Football season, with ESPN even listing the reigning Fiesta Bowl champions as the No. 1 team in the country in their post-spring “Way-Too-Early Top 25 rankings”, up two spots from their previous ranking.
Penn State experienced somewhat of a breakthrough season in 2024. Though head coach James Franklin infamously still has not beaten a top-five team since 2016 (1-14 since 2014), his Nittany Lions reached the College Football Playoff for the first time and won two games before a heart-wrenching loss in the Orange Bowl semifinal matchup against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
Much of the Penn State hype for 2025 is built on the fact that they have nine of their 11 offensive starters returning, including quarterback Drew Allar.
While Allar’s performance was questionable at times in 2024, including in the latter stages of the Orange Bowl loss, his overall progression from 2023 to 2024 was obvious under first-year offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki.
His touchdown-to-interception ratio dropped from 25/2 to 24/8, but he completed 66.5% of his passes for 3,327 yards, up from 59.9% and 2,631, and averaged 8.4 yards per attempt, well up from his 6.8 mark during his first year as the starting QB. He also rushed for 302 yards and six touchdowns, up from 210 yards and four scores two years ago.
Familiarity with Kotelnicki’s offensive scheme, coupled with familiarity with the overwhelming majority of an offense that averaged 34.4 points per game a year ago, has many believing that Allar could silence the doubters once and for all with a true breakout year and solidify himself as a top pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
The addition of wide receivers Trebor Pena from Syracuse, Devonte Ross from Troy, and Kyron Hudson from USC in the transfer portal shouldn’t hurt, either.
The Medina, Ohio native may not be the outright favorite to win the Heisman Trophy, but he has emerged inside the top five in a way-too-early glimpse at the odds.
Drew Allar among country's top Heisman favorites
FanDuel Sportsbook lists Allar at +1400 (bet $100 to win $1,400) to win the prestigious award, giving him the fifth-shortest odds in the nation.
He finds himself behind three other quarterbacks. While he is listed as the highest signal caller in the Big Ten, he does find himself behind one other Big Ten star in Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith.
Let’s start with Smith, who is listed fourth at +1300. Simply put, Ohio State doesn’t win last season’s national championship without Smith, who emerged as the nation’s top wideout with 1,315 yards and 15 touchdowns on 76 receptions – as a freshman.
Many NFL fans and draft analysts are already projecting him to be the No. 1 overall pick in 2027, something that hasn’t happened for a wide receiver since Keyshawn Johnson was taken by the New York Jets out of USC in 1996.
While the Heisman Trophy has been somewhat of a quarterback-dominated award overall, that hasn’t necessarily been the case lately. Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith won it in 2020 and Colorado wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter won it last year.
Three QBs listed higher than Allar
The three quarterbacks with shorter odds than Allar include two returning starters in LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier (+800) and Clemson’s Cade Klubnik (+900).
LSU has become “QBU” in recent years, with Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels being the obvious names, though Nussmeier still has to clean some things up after a 12-interception campaign in his first year as the starter. But he quietly had a 4,000-yard season and should only improve as LSU likely contends for their first playoff spot since their 2019 national championship run.
Klubnik had the kind of breakout year in 2024 that many expect Nussmeier to have in 2025. He nearly doubled his total touchdown production (23 to 43) and emerged as a legitimate dual threat quarterback with 463 rushing yards, leading Clemson to their first CFP appearance since 2020. And Clemson, by the way, is listed at No. 2 behind Penn State in ESPN’s early rankings.
We saved the outright favorite for last.
Texas quarterback Arch Manning is listed at +700 to win this year’s Heisman Trophy. We saw flashes of what Arch can do in limited playing time in 2024 as Quinn Ewers’ backup, and we can still hear Longhorns fans shouting at Steve Sarkisian for not putting him into the game against Ohio State on that fateful sequence from the 1-yard line in the Cotton Bowl.
Manning’s 2024 statline was produced from a very small sample size, as he only threw 90 passes. But he averaged more than 10 yards per pass attempt, throwing nine touchdowns in the process, and he gave the Longhorns a much-needed dual threat presence whenever he lined up, adding 108 yards and four touchdowns on the ground.
It’s hard to think back to a more anticipated QB debut (as a full-time starter) than Manning’s, and he is being thrown to the wolves right from the get-go, with Texas set to travel to Columbus for a rematch against the Buckeyes on Saturday, August 30. What better way to see what he’s really made of?
While they are No. 3 in ESPN’s rankings, the Longhorns themselves are listed at FanDuel Sportsbook as the outright national championship favorites (+550). Penn State is fourth (+850), behind Ohio State (+600) and the Georgia Bulldogs (+600).
Full Heisman Trophy and NCAA football national championship odds can be found here. All odds and availability are subject to change.
Penn State is scheduled to open their 2025 season with a home game against the Nevada Wolf Pack, also on Saturday, August 30. They are currently listed at 45.5-point favorites to get the 2025 campaign off to a (1-0) start at Beaver Stadium.