Penn State’s climb to No. 13 looked nice on paper, but the résumé underneath it is shaky enough to crack the AP Top 25 wide open.
The Nittany Lions rolled to 3-0 against a glorified preseason slate of non-power conference opponents, then got hit with a reality check in their Big Ten debut. Wisconsin walked out with a 24-20 win despite Penn State getting a pick-six and finishing plus-2 in turnovers. That kind of loss can send a team tumbling, and Penn State now looks like a real candidate to slide all the way out when the AP poll drops Sunday afternoon.
The bigger issue is simple: there just isn’t much there for voters to grab onto. According to Bill Connelly’s SP+ rankings heading into Week 4, Temple is the highest-rated of Penn State’s three wins, and the Owls sit at No. 95 of 138 FBS teams.
Marshall and Buffalo round out the list. Wisconsin checks in at No. 55, and that loss becomes the clearest thing on Penn State’s résumé.
For a team sitting on the edge of the rankings, that’s a brutal profile.
Yes, the roster might still look like a top-25 group in the abstract. The source material puts Penn State somewhere around the 20th-best team in the sport, especially with Koby Howard healthy.
But the AP poll is about what you’ve done, not what you might be. On that front, Penn State doesn’t have a power-conference win yet, and that’s a glaring problem.
There is one path for the Nittany Lions to hang around: voters could lean on what they thought of them before the season. Penn State opened at No. 18, not as a top-10 team, but those early impressions still matter in September. AP voters often shuffle the deck rather than completely rebuild it, and that can give a team like Penn State a little breathing room.
Even so, the math is working against them. Penn State entered Week 4 at No. 13, seven teams from the previous top 25 lost on Saturday, and No.
26 Washington also lost at home to Minnesota. That creates the kind of churn where teams can stay ranked even after a bad result.
But the problem for Penn State is that the other teams in the mix that lost this week already have a power-conference win. Penn State doesn’t, which makes it the easiest name to cut.
Oklahoma State, Kentucky, Boise State, and Virginia Tech are all positioned to enter the conversation, and Penn State looks like the most vulnerable team of the bunch. A 3-1 record sounds respectable, but wins over Marshall, Temple, and Buffalo don’t carry much weight, and even Wisconsin, despite its lopsided Week 1 loss to Notre Dame, has a stronger résumé at the same record.
Penn State might get a courtesy stay in the poll for one more week. But on merit, there’s no real case for it to remain in the AP Top 25 right now.
In Other News...
Penn State Already Faces An Uncomfortable Question About Life After Franklin
Penn States stumble at Beaver Stadium against Wisconsin in Matt Campbells Big Ten debut as head coach put an immediate spotlight on what life looks like after James Franklin. Coaching changes are never clean, especially when a new leader is being asked to steady a program with expectations as high as Penn States. Campbell arrives with a reputation as a builder, the kind of coach who needs time to shape a team in his image rather than simply patching over what came before.
For the Nittany Lions, the uncomfortable part is not just that the transition has begun, but that recent results have already started to look more fragile than the standard Franklin set in earlier years. This is the part of a changeover that programs hope to avoid, when every loss turns into a referendum on the new era and every uneven performance invites comparisons to the old one. Penn State is only at the beginning of that process, but the pressure to show progress is already very real. [Read more 🡒]
Penn State Has A Scheduling Problem Fans Cant Ignore
Penn State had plenty to feel good about when it took a 17-0 lead into halftime, but the second half against Wisconsin turned into a reminder that early control does not always mean a game is secure. The offense managed only a field goal after the break, while Wisconsin kept chipping away and eventually put up 24 points to flip the result. Matt Campbell acknowledged the missed opportunities afterward, and the loss fit a familiar pattern for a team that can look polished before the pressure really ramps up.
That is why the conversation around the Nittany Lions non-conference slate has become hard to ignore. An easier early schedule can help a team build confidence and stack wins, but it can also hide flaws that only show up once the calendar turns and the opponents get stronger. For Penn State, the concern is not just the loss itself, but whether the schedule has given a truer picture of what this team is before the tougher conference tests arrive. [Read more 🡒]
Penn State's Offense Hit A Troubling Low In Loss To Wisconsin
Penn States offense has had uneven stretches this season, but the loss to Wisconsin brought a new low in the grading as well as the scoreboard. Pro Football Focus gave the unit its worst mark of the year, while the defense, which held up far better, posted its second-highest grade of the season and had one of the days biggest bright spots in freshman Josiah Zayas.
Zayas finished with the top defensive grade on the team after returning an interception for a touchdown, a play that briefly gave Penn State some life. The other side of the ball told a harsher story, with quarterback Rocco Becht turning in a rough outing and several offensive linemen also drawing season-low grades, leaving the offense searching for answers after another frustrating night. [Read more 🡒]