Penn State finally found its way to the College Football Playoff Semifinal last season, but with another regular season loss to Ohio State, and its two CFP wins coming over SMU and Boise State due to confusing playoff seeding, “Big Game James” Franklin hasn’t quite shut up all his doubters just yet. However, over his 12-year tenure at Penn State, 2025 is his best shot.
After the CFP Semifinal loss to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl and a 13-3 season, Franklin managed to keep much of his loaded roster intact throughout the offseason. Drew Allar, Nicholas Singleton, Kaytron Allen, Dani Dennis-Sutton, Zane Durant, and Zakee Wheatley all delayed their impending NFL careers for another shot at a national title. And, after a few major transfer portal moves to reload the wide receiver room and shore up the defense for former Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, the Nittany Lions could be entering next season as the best team in the country.
The pressure has never been higher on Franklin, but with a soft non-conference slate, the 2025 schedule lines up perfectly to get Penn State back into the Big Ten Championship Game and the CFP. Here’s a look at every game on the schedule and a way-too-early prediction coming out of spring ball.
In its first season under Jeff Choate, Nevada managed a one-game improvement last season, finishing 3-10 after back-to-back 2-10 seasons brought a swift end to the Ken Wilson era. Maybe the Wolf Pack will manage four victories this season, but one of those won’t be coming at Penn State’s expense.
Following three straight 4-8 seasons under Mike MacIntyre, FIU moved on to Willie Simmons this offseason, but it’s going to take more than one transfer portal cycle to turn the Golden Panthers around.
Penn State’s running game will remain the same with Singleton and Allen back, but the passing game will be entirely different without tight end Tyler Warren. The Nittany Lions have a perfect three-game runway for Allar to develop a rapport with Kyron Hudson, Trebor Pena, and Devonte Ross.
Villanova may have sent a Pope to the Vatican, but the Wildcats have only sent six players to the NFL Draft since Howie Long was a second-round pick in 1981. Penn State’s offense should be firing on all cylinders by Week 3, and the Nittany Lions will blow out Villanova at Beaver Stadium.
Week 4: BYE
Penn State avoided Oregon in the regular season last year, but fell to the Ducks in the Big Ten Championship Game. However, Franklin kept much more talent in Happy Valley than Dan Lanning did in Eugene, and with a young quarterback like Dante Moore coming into a difficult environment like Beaver Stadium, Penn State should have the upper hand.
Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein, in conjunction with Dillon Gabriel and Tez Johnson, torched Tom Allen’s defense in Indianapolis last season, and that had to be one of the big reasons that Franklin led Allen walk to Clemson and spent big to replace him with Knowles after his championship run.
Knowles stifled the Ducks in the Rose Bowl by placing superstar safety Caleb Downs right in the middle of the field, where Gabriel connected with Johnson so many times last season. Penn State doesn’t have a player of Downs’s caliber on defense, but with Knowles’ wealth of experience, he’ll find another solution to slow down the Ducks.
UCLA got a major boost in the spring transfer portal window when former five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava left Tennessee amid an NIL dispute and returned home to LA, but DeShaun Foster still has a long way to go building up his roster around his new QB. The Bruins may put up some points next season, but they won’t be able to slow down Penn State’s running game as they did last season with Nicholas Singleton out in the Nittany Lions’ 27-11 win.
Northwestern also upgraded at quarterback in the transfer portal, nabbing SMU transfer Preston Stone, who lost his job to Kevin Jenning last season. However, if the Nittany Lions flummoxed Jennings in the first round of the CFP, then how bad would things have looked with his backup in the game? Penn State should continue to roll into a brutal Week 8 matchup.
It is never easy to win at Kinnick Stadium, and now that Kirk Ferentz has a competent offensive coordinator and an intriguing transfer quarterback, the Hawkeyes could take a real step forward in 2025. With a bye week looming before a trip to Columbus for Penn State, this is the scariest matchup on the schedule because the Nittany Lions can still grab a CFP bid with two losses, but three will be too many.
Penn State should be able to overwhelm Iowa with its superior talent, but this game may take some late-game Drew Allar heroics, and a game-winning drive in a difficult spot like this could cement his place as a first-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Week 9: BYE
James Franklin is 1-10 against Ohio State, but this could be the first time that he enters the matchup with the truly superior roster. Ryan Day might have the best player in college football on both sides of the ball with Caleb Downs and Jeremiah Smith, but he’ll be breaking in a new quarterback and just lost 14 players to the NFL Draft and seven across the first two rounds. Even for an NFL factory like the one Day is running in Columbus, that’s just too much talent to overcome and still contend for a national championship.
And yet, Franklin’s only win against the Buckeyes came on a miraculous blocked field goal returned for a touchdown in 2016. Until he proves he can beat the Buckeyes without divine intervention, I’ll pencil this game in as a loss for the Nittany Lions.
Curt Cignetti shocked everyone when he took Indiana to the CFP last season, but his team was no match for Ohio State or Notre Dame in its two losses. This year, despite reloading in the transfer portal with former Cal quarterback Fernanado Mendoza and holding onto multiple key defensive pieces, Indiana will take a step back.
The Hoosiers could still compete for a CFP spot with Oregon and Penn State as the only two Big Ten powerhouses on the schedule, so Cignetti will do everything he can to keep this game close. That could include a long, late, and meaningless touchdown drive to make the score look better, like last year against Ohio State.
Jonathan Smith is slowly turning things around in East Lansing, and Year 2 should provide a bit more promise. Smith has an intriguing quarterback in Aidan Chiles, who followed him from Oregon State, but Chiles just turned the ball over far too much last season, and he won’t be able to get away with those mistakes against one of the best teams in the country.
Michigan State will hang around through the first half, but eventually, Penn State will pull away from its ninth win of the season.
Historically, Year 3 has always been when Matt Rhule’s rebuild finally crescendos. In his third season at Temple, he went 10-4, and in his third season at Baylor, he won 11 games. He’s following a similar trajectory at Nebraska and added some real offensive firepower around Dylan Raiola for his second season. The Cornhuskers could be a dark horse Big Ten contender, but there are clear tiers in the Big Ten, and Nebraska still won’t be on Penn State’s level in 2025.
Greg Schiano has made Rutgers respectable once again, and the program has even made some noise on the recruiting trail, but the Scarlet Knights will never be a real threat in the Big Ten. Much like 2024 against Maryland, Penn State should cruise in the final week of the season to secure a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game, finishing with an 11-1 record.