Predicting Penn State Football’s Ranking in First AP Top-25 of 2024 Season

Penn State Football is a little under three weeks away from heading to Morgantown, West Virginia for a pivotal Week 1 matchup with the Mountaineers.

While fall camp has been abuzz and there is plenty to still find out about the 2024 team, the first AP rankings will release Monday ahead of the 2024 season.

While I personally believe that rankings should not exist until later in the season (see College Football Playoff rankings not beginning until late October, early November every year), it is still a fun exercise to see where the media believes the top 25 teams should be ranked every week. Ahead of the 2024 season, here is a projection of where Penn State will sit in the first AP poll of the season:

Penn State finished the 2023 season ranked 13 in the AP poll after a Peach Bowl loss to ninth-ranked Ole Miss.

However, due to coaching changes, graduations, players declaring for the NFL draft, and incoming transfers and freshmen, the AP poll ranking for teams can vary widely from the end of one season to the beginning of the next. Teams like Michigan (No. 1*) and Washington (No. 2) are expected to take a tumble down the rankings despite success in 2023. Ohio State (No. 10) on the other hand could see a massive rise due to players returning and incoming transfers. So where will Penn State sit in the first ranking?

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Penn State Football’s 2024 Outlook, Possible Opening Ranking

In the first season of the expanded playoff, where the Nittany Lions will no longer be stuck in the Big Ten east division with Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State, Penn State returns one of the top rosters in college football in 2024.

With a cohort of junior impact players (Drew Allar, Nick Singleton, Kaytron Allen, Dani Dennis-Sutton, Abdul Carter, and KJ Winston), Penn State will have high expectations to break through to the college football playoff for the first time this season.

However, despite the potential of the 2024 team, voters may still hesitate to rank Penn State among the other elites of college football because of the Nittany Lions‘ three new coordinators and James Franklin’s history of not being able to break through into the four-team playoff.

For these reasons, expect Penn State to be initially ranked somewhere between six and ten in the first AP poll of the season Monday.

Penn State should sit around Michigan, Notre Dame, Ole Miss, and Missouri in the second tier of teams ranked in the first AP poll.

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How Penn State Football Can Climb The Rankings in 2024

Despite losing key players and coaches around the program, Michigan may get the benefit of the doubt ahead of a week two matchup with Texas and be ranked above the Nittany Lions. The voters will likely rank Ole Miss ahead of Penn State because of the head-to-head win in the Peach Bowl to finish last season. Notre Dame and Missouri are wild cards with success last season and high expectations this season.

All that said, I will project Penn State to be initially ranked number eight in the initial AP poll of the season. I have the Nittany Lions slotted behind Ole Miss and Michigan and ahead of Missouri and Notre Dame in the initial ranking. Luckily for the Nittany Lions, the initial ranking means nothing for the 2024 season and the Nittany Lions will have plenty to prove on the field to try to earn the program’s first college football playoff birth in the first year of the expanded playoff.

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