Penn State has become the Big Ten’s great guessing game, and the latest round of media voting only sharpened that picture.
Cleveland.com’s 16th annual Big Ten football media poll, the conference’s unofficial preseason measuring stick, placed the Nittany Lions sixth overall with 380 points. That left Penn State well behind No.
5 Michigan at 430 points, but still ahead of Washington, which finished with 366. Ohio State claimed the top spot with 11 of 16 first-place votes and 540 points, while Oregon also picked up 11 first-place votes and totaled 527 points.
Defending conference and national champion Indiana landed third with five first-place votes and 509 points, and USC checked in fourth with 446 points.
What stood out most for Penn State wasn’t just the ranking - it was the spread. According to Cleveland.com, the Nittany Lions had the widest range of votes in the poll, landing anywhere from fourth to 11th, as reporter Stephen Means noted. That kind of split says plenty about how hard this team is to pin down.
The uncertainty carried over to the poll for Big Ten offensive and defensive players of the year. No Penn State players received votes for either award, another sign that the media still isn’t sure what to make of the roster.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly had already set the tone by calling the 2026 Penn State team “seemingly impossible” to forecast. The Cleveland.com results fit right into that same conversation.
The roster makeup explains why. Penn State brought back 52 players from its 2025 team, including key starters such as linebacker Tony Rojas, tackle Anthony Donkoh and cornerbacks Audavion Collins and Zion Tracy.
But the bigger storyline is the 55 newcomers, including 40 transfers brought in after Campbell was hired in December. Of those transfers, 24 came from Iowa State, which has fueled the idea that this Penn State group is Iowa State 2.0 of East Ames.
That blend of returning pieces and heavy turnover is what makes the 2026 season so difficult to read.
“Penn State is seemingly impossible to project, especially since the Nittany Lions will be more Iowa State than PSU this season under new coach Matt Campbell," Connelly wrote. "They could indeed be a borderline top-15 team or they could stumble out of the top 40 - neither would surprise me much."
Campbell, for his part, still isn’t ready to put a firm label on his team. He said after spring practice that it was “too early to tell.”
“The reality from our end of it is, every step of the way we were thinking about how do you build the best roster to be our best?” Campbell said.
“I think we grew immensely through the first 16 weeks of our time with this football team. But are we ready?
Are we capable? We had a lot of injuries, a lot of guys didn't practice this spring, so did we gain real momentum?
“I think this is a team that, if it’s going to reach its full potential, it’'s going to have to be able to be its best. Sometimes being your best is being a little lucky with injuries, being groomed to be its best physically and play its best in critical moments.
I think those things are still out there. Like what kind of team are we really?
I think fall camp will tell us a lot more about who we are and where we're at.”
The first chance for the Big Ten media to sort through all of that comes Tuesday in Chicago, where Penn State takes the stage on Day of the three-day Big Ten Football Media Days event.
In Other News...
Penn States Iconic Jersey Is About To Change Forever
Penn States football uniforms are headed for a long-anticipated change, with athletic director Pat Kraft confirming the program will soon add a corporate logo patch to the jerseys. It is the latest sign that even one of college footballs most tradition-heavy brands is adjusting to the new financial realities of the sport, and Penn State is approaching the move with the same caution it has shown in other revenue pursuits.
Kraft said the department is weighing the right fit while trying to protect the look and feel of the jersey, a balancing act that has become familiar across the Big Ten as more schools embrace patch deals. Penn State has already leaned into other money-making avenues, from a cryptocurrency fan token platform to a stadium field-naming rights agreement, and the jersey patch now appears to be the next piece of that broader push, even if the final rollout is still taking shape. [Read more 🡒]
Penn State Fans Can See This Uniform Change Coming Now
The NCAAs approval of commercial patches on college uniforms has already started to reshape the Big Ten, with Illinois, Northwestern, Michigan State and Ohio State all moving ahead with jersey sponsorships. For Penn State, the change feels less like a question of if than when, especially as schools around the league begin turning a once-taboo space on the uniform into a new revenue stream.
An official announcement has not arrived yet, but the expectation around Happy Valley is that the Nittany Lions will not sit this one out for long. Once Penn State does move, the sponsor will say plenty about how the program wants to balance tradition with the modern business of college sports, and it will be worth watching which local or national brand ends up in that spot. [Read more 🡒]
Pat Kraft Just Sent Penn State Fans A Blunt Basketball Message
Penn States mens basketball budget is getting a noticeable lift, and athletic director Pat Kraft made it clear the program is being asked to think bigger about what it takes to compete in the Big Ten. In an interview, Kraft said the Nittany Lions are still spending below the leagues top programs, even as the budget has nearly doubled for the 2026-2027 season and now sits around $8 million, with NIL and third-party support playing a growing role in how schools build rosters.
Kraft also put the focus on the people trying to make that money matter, praising Mike Rhoades and his staff for the way they have recruited and developed the roster. The message was straightforward: Penn State wants to be competitive at a high level, but getting there means more than just opening the checkbook, and the next step in that climb will depend on how the program keeps bridging the gap with the leagues biggest spenders. [Read more 🡒]