Penn State’s road back to the College Football Playoff looks a lot cleaner on paper than it did a year ago, and the Big Ten’s preseason media poll makes that hard to miss.
Cleveland.com released its annual preseason Big Ten Media poll on Monday, one day before the conference gathers in Chicago for Media Days. The poll, which has been around since 2011, doesn’t rank teams like a power poll. It projects the order the league expects them to finish.
This time, Ohio State landed at No. 1 with 15 first-place votes, while Oregon checked in second and Indiana - still somehow doubted after winning the national title in January - came in third. Penn State, meanwhile, was placed sixth in Matt Campbell’s first season.
That number may not jump off the page at first glance, but the schedule around it does.
Penn State’s 2025 run through the Big Ten was brutal. The Nittany Lions opened conference play by hosting Oregon, a game that marked the start of the collapse.
Later, they had to deal with Ohio State and Indiana in consecutive weeks. Those three teams were the conference’s CFP representatives, and Indiana and Oregon met in the CFP semifinal.
This year looks much friendlier. Based on the poll, Penn State’s only games against the league’s top five teams are against No.
4 USC and No. 5 Michigan.
The USC game comes in Happy Valley and is almost certain to get the White Out treatment.
Beyond that, the path is lined with a much softer group of opponents. Penn State also draws Purdue, Rutgers, Maryland, and Northwestern - four of the bottom five teams in Cleveland.com’s poll. Add in a nonconference slate of Marshall, Temple, and Buffalo, and 10-2 starts to look like a realistic expectation for Campbell’s opening Big Ten season.
That’s the big takeaway here: in a league with 18 teams and a schedule that can swing wildly from year to year, Penn State caught a break.
The Big Ten’s structure creates these uneven paths, especially compared with the SEC’s annual fixed-opponent setup. The league does protect key rivalries, but the Penn State-Ohio State matchup isn’t one of them. And even under a model like the SEC’s, Ohio State would not want to be stuck playing Penn State and Michigan every year.
So every now and then, the Nittany Lions get a schedule like this one. The challenge is making it count.
Cleveland.com’s poll also suggests Penn State is expected to take at least one loss against USC or Michigan, since those are the teams ranked ahead of it on the slate. A 10-2 finish probably wouldn’t be enough for a CFP bid without a signature win, but it would still be a major step up from the 2025 season - and a lot better than landing in sixth again.
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 🡒]