The 2025 college football season is right around the corner, and the Associated Press has released its preseason All-America team. Unsurprisingly, the two top-ranked squads in the AP poll also dominated the player selections.

Penn State is one of six Big Ten teams in the AP preseason top 25. Illinois is ranked No. 12, Michigan came in at No. 14, and Indiana sits at No. 20. For the fifth consecutive season, I’m excited to be an AP top 25 voter. I ranked Penn State No. 1 on my preseason ballot, followed by Clemson, Texas, Ohio State and Notre Dame.

When the Associated Press' preseason college football poll came out on Monday, ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum did not like where Penn State appeared.

The allure of unfinished business outweighed professional prospects for rocket-armed quarterback Drew Allar after Penn State’s down-to-the-wire loss to Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff semif

No. 2 marks Penn State’s highest preseason ranking in the James Franklin era, though the program has outperformed its preseason spot just four times in Franklin’s 11 years. The Lions went from unranked to fifth in 2016, 15th to 10th in 2019, unranked to 11th in 2022 and eighth to fourth in 2024.

The Penn State Nittany Lions were placed second, right after the Texas Longhorns, in this year's preseason AP Poll rankings. No doubt, James Franklin & Co.

Nicole Auerbach compares her top 25 to the overall AP poll and discusses early thoughts on the highest-ranked teams with Joshua Perry.

Texas and Penn State, the top two teams in the Associated Press' preseason top 25 poll, each had three players selected for the preseason AP All-America first team announced Monday.