Greg McElroy argues Penn State was ranked too low in preseason

College football analyst Greg McElroy, like many other analysts, put together a preseason ranking of the teams. Now, nearing the halfway point of the season, he looked back on his rankings to determine what was smart and what was dumb.

Initially, McElroy had Penn State ranked 11th. Now, he thinks that was dumb of him.

“At number 11, we had Penn State,” Greg McElroy said on Always College Football. “Here’s what I’m gonna tell you, this was dumb because they should have been ranked higher. I didn’t know that Penn State would be this good defensively.”

To this point in the season, Penn State is only allowing 210.6 yards per game. That’s the best total defense in the country. The Nittany Lions also have the fourth-ranked scoring defense in the country, only giving up 8.75 points per game.

“Now, the offense the last couple weeks, maybe some growing pains that have come to the forefront, but that’s a really solid group. I think the offense is going to get better in time. I think Drew Allar is going to get more comfortable in time, but we should have had them in the top seven or eight.”

All of the excitement around Penn State coming into the season comes from the Nittany Lions’ young and talented backfield. That starts with the sophomore running backs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen. Then, first-year starting quarterback Drew Allar came to Penn State with a five-star recruit, according to the On3 Industry Rankings.

“Based on their personnel, based on what they had returning, and based on how they’ve played here through the first month of the season,” McElroy said. “So, having them at 11 in the preseason was dumb. I will certainly shoulder the burden for that, Penn State fans. You guys deserved better.”

James Franklin on the lack of big plays by Penn State

Despite how good of a season Penn State has had, the Nittany Lions have struggled to create explosive plays on offense, both in the running game and in the passing game.

Head coach James Franklin spoke about the lack of big plays following the Nittany Lions’ win against Northwestern.

“I think there’s some things that we can do that we’ll work on in the bye week. But, again, overall 41-13, a win, 1-0. Obviously, there’s going to be things that we need to critique this week and do some self-scouting and some studying,” Franklin said.

“We’d like to be more explosive as well, although I thought we did improve this week. I still think there’s an opportunity for some more big plays in both the run game and the pass game and that will obviously be something that we’re gonna dig into deeply this week.”