Joel Klatt Names Surprising No. 1 in Early College Football Rankings

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Spencer Ostrow | Last updated Jan 23, 2025 11:36 AM ET

The 2024 college football season officially wrapped up on Monday with the College Football Playoff National Championship game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

While Ohio State fans are still riding high from their championship win, the rest of the college football world has already moved on to 2025.

On Thursday, Fox Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt shared his "way-too-early" top 10 rankings for the 2025 season on his podcast, " The Joel Klatt Show."

At No. 1, he named the Penn State Nittany Lions, who recently fell to Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff semifinals and finished the season 13-3.

"Penn State is gonna be my number one team in my way-too-early top 10 for 2025," Klatt said. "Penn State has gotten better every single year for the past three or four years, and James Franklin, their team man, they had every opportunity to win that game against Notre Dame. They are knocking on the door of a national championship, and now they're bring all of those key pieces back to their team. This is the blueprint."

Klatt went into detail on the "blueprint" to win in college football nowadays.

"There is a clear blueprint in college football that has been now established over the last two years," Klatt added. "Everything runs in cycles, and right now the cycle is about veteran, experienced players. You got to have them, and it's even more valuable when they come from your own program. When you can bring guys back to your program, and they know the drill, and they know the culture, and the culture of the team rests in those core players, you've got something special."

Some of the more notable key pieces the Nittany Lions return include quarterback Drew Allar, and running backs Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton.

The last time Penn State was ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll was way back in 1997.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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