The Penn State Nittany Lions are coming off one of the best seasons in the program’s history. The program finished 2024 with a 13-3 record, a trip to the Big 10 Conference Championship game, and two victories in the newly expanded College Football Playoffs.
Head coach James Franklin has been a big part of the team’s success for over a decade now. Under Franklin, the Nittany Lions have played to a 101-42 record overall, a 64-33 record in conference play, have finished all but one season above .500 (the COVID-shortened 2020 saw them finish 4-5), and have six campaigns of 10 wins or more of the 11 during Franklin’s tenure.
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It is a strong track record of recruiting and development from Franklin that has led to his success with Penn State, and that success has led the coach to ranking inside the top 10 among his peers in a recent article from ESPN.
“He’s following a Mark Richt-style, success-over-the-long-haul path (without the ultimate success, at least so far),” writes Bill Connelly of ESPN, “and I respect that. He dealt with a number of setbacks in the 2020-21 range, made the changes he needed to make and got PSU right back on the path they were following from 2016 to 2019. He has four former coordinators who have gone on to hold FBS head coaching jobs, and that number will likely grow when Andy Kotelnicki joins the ranks in the next couple of years. He hasn’t figured out a way to get past Ohio State and into the promised land yet, but he’s got his PhD in program-building at this point.”
The WorldWide Leader’s poll of their writers in that article found Franklin ranked eighth overall.
The 2025 season is another filled with high expectations around Franklin and the Nittany Lions football program. After a strong performance in 2024, and a returning Drew Allar at quarterback, the near future is bright for Penn State, and they have a top-10 head coach leading the way.
