Penn State offense earns lofty rating in new College Football '25
As rankings go, Penn State football’s offensive output in 2023 wasn’t abysmal. The Nittany Lions finished among the nation’s top teams in scoring, anyway, ranking No. 12 at 36.2 points per game.
Practically speaking, that was where the sexiness stopped.
Checking in at No. 53 in total yardage, No. 56 in team passing efficiency, and No. 77 in passing offense, the Nittany Lions plodded through the 2023 schedule. But, in the biggest games, offensive failings doomed Penn State to a 20-12 loss at Ohio State and a 24-15 loss to Michigan weeks later.
As a result, Penn State head coach James Franklin changed out his offensive coordinator, turning to Kansas’ Andy Kotelnicki. Top returning receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith moved on. So did three drafted NFL offensive linemen for the first time since 1996. Also gone was a mid-round tight end in Theo Johnson.
Still, EA Sports’ new College Football ’25 likes what the Nittany Lions have coming back. Releasing their rankings and overall ratings for the game’s July 16 unveiling, the new game puts Penn State at No. 12 nationally with an overall rating of 87.
Parsing the new ranking
At the forefront of Penn State’s offensive optimism is the leadership of Kotelnicki, who is determined to better utilize the pieces at his disposal this season. Heralded for his motivational influence over the totality of the offense, Franklin said that Kotelnicki has a plan and intends to see it through with team-wide buy-in.
“One of the big things with Andy is he’s a relational leader. He’s an esprit de corps guy. He’s got everybody pulling the rope in the same direction,” Franklin told BWI this summer. “It’s fun. It’s exciting. That alone. And I think there’s more of a sense of we’re in this together. Where maybe sometimes in the past when things didn’t go well, it wasn’t always presented in a way of ‘Hey, we win together, we lose together. Things don’t go well and we’ll get it fixed together.'”
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Set to execute Kotelnicki’s plan, Penn State has returning third-year quarterback Drew Allar at the helm. The Nittany Lions have a pair of back-to-back, co-offensive MVPs from the team in Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen. Complemented by Tyler Warren at tight end and optimism for receiver Trey Wallace, the program has personnel Kotelnicki believes is plenty good enough to win.
“I want people to feel stressed about how are we going to cover and tackle Ty Warren and Fat and Nick Singleton,” said Kotelnicki. “Then the different personnel groupings that we could have.”
Scouting the Big Ten
Penn State isn’t alone in representing the Big Ten among the nation’s top offenses according to College Football ’25.
But, it is extraordinarily limited.
The top designation goes to the newly-arriving Oregon, which checks in at No. 2 nationally with a 94 OVR. Also on the list in the Big Ten is Ohio State, coming in at No. 5, 89 OVR.
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