Tier rankings place Penn State, James Franklin, among top teams and coaches in 2023: Newsstand
Penn State news, notes, and updates for Sept. 1 include a look at where the Lions and coach James Franklin stack up nationally and more.
It’s time to dive into Friday’s top tweets and headlines about the Nittany Lions and college athletics.
Penn State tweets of the day
We start with a look at how two media outlets rank 10th-year leader of the Lions James Franklin among his peers and the 2023 Penn State team among its.
The Athletic broke 116 FBS coaches into eight segments. Alabama coach Nick Saban sat in 1A by himself. Georiga’s Kirby Smart and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney made up 1B. Seven others fell into tier two, including three from the Big Ten in Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, and Ohio State’s Ryan Day. Franklin is then in tier three with 26 other coaches. But, one of the piece’s authors thinks he should have been higher on the list.
“Franklin is the one guy in here I think should be bumped up a tier,” The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman writes. “There are other really good coaches in this tier, but Franklin has done way more than most of them. I certainly put Franklin in the same category with Fickell, who did a tremendous job at Cincinnati, along with Day and Lincoln Riley, who took over much better situations in their first jobs.”
Elsewhere, ESPN has the 2023 version of Penn State in tier 2c of its ranking of all 133 FBS teams. That puts it in a group of programs that have College Football Playoff potential this fall despite never making it before.
“The first seven years of the playoff were dominated by four teams: Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Oklahoma,” ESPN’s David Hale writes. “The past two years, however, have included three first-timers in Michigan, Cincinnati and TCU.
Top 10
- 1
SEC fines LSU
SEC levies fine for Death Valley field storm
- 2New
AP Poll Top 25
Top 10 shakeup in AP Poll
- 3Hot
Coaches Poll shake up
Top 25 sees big movement
- 4
Graham Mertz injury
Latest on Florida QB
- 5Trending
Kirby shoves MSU QB
The UGA coach is going to regret this
“Will the trend continue in 2023? There are plenty of possibilities — from a deep Penn State team to a high-scoring USC to arguably the best Texas team in more than a decade.”
Headlines of the day
Anthony Poindexter on Penn State’s safety depth, what’s next for CD East grad Mehki Flowers: Flounders, PennLive
Penn State assistant Anthony Poindexter talks Lions’ plan at safety, King Mack being green lit, and more: Pickel, BWI
Penn State Vs. West Virginia Predictions: Supercharged for the ‘Sneaky Whiteout’: Wogenrich, SI
Multiple four-star prospects added to Penn State – West Virginia recruiting list: Snyder, BWI
Wallace, Lambert-Smith to Fill Top 2 Receiver Roles: Jones, Statecollege.com
Is 2023 Penn State’s year to jump Ohio State?: Collegian staff
Quote of the day
“We’ve had all offseason, we’ve had time to make mistakes. We’ve had time to correct them. And we have had time to grow. So I feel like we’ve made sure that we get all the mistakes out of the way.
“You don’t want to make mistakes on the big stage. That’s what the offseason and camp and all that was for. So I feel like we have a pretty good understanding of what we have in our room and our team. It’s just about going out there and executing at this point.”
–PSU DE Adisa Isaac on making it through preseason camp and being on the cusp of the 2023 season.
