Penn State enters 2025 as the No. 2 team in the country according to The Associated Press top 25 and as the No. 3 team in the USA Today Coaches Poll. Those are driven by human voters, of course. Where do the Lions stand when data is mostly running the show? ESPN’s Bill Connelly has long been providing that answer through his SP+ rankings. And, his final preseason version is now out.
For those unfamiliar, we’ll start with some background. The longtime college football writer and data analyst describes his system as follows:
“SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date.”
Once the numbers were crunched, Penn State checks in at No. 4 in the final preseason SP+ top 25. That is down from No. 3 in Connelly’s post-spring rankings, which is the same spot James Franklin’s team held in the initial rundown back in March. What changed? Ohio State and Alabama still hold the top two spots. But, Georgia leapfrogged the Lions between May and now. The teams are very close, however; Kirby Smart’s side has 24.4 points to Penn State’s 24.2. While the rankings are data-driven, a human has to input them, of course. And that is seemingly what gave Georgia a slight edge now.
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“Since the May rankings, I’ve continued to update rosters for late transfers and fall camp injuries. But the largest changes came from some tweaking on my end — some teams with especially noteworthy luck (good or bad) saw some shifts, and after quite a bit of experimenting, I ended up tamping down the overall top-to-bottom spread of points,” Connelly writes. “Translation: The top teams’ ratings aren’t quite as high as they were in May.”
To put the points in perspective, the Buckeyes and Crimson Tide have 26.1 and 25.5, respectively. Texas rounds out the top five with 23.1.
You can see the full SP+ rankings and more of Connelly’s analysis by clicking here.