On Saturday, the world will get its first look at the 2025 Penn State football team at the Blue-White Game in Beaver Stadium. Just over three months after the heartbreaking defeat at the Orange Bowl, Penn State has essentially set its roster for the upcoming season, pending late transfer portal acquisitions.

After their most successful season in a few decades, the Nittany Lions enter 2025 with true national championship expectations for the first time in recent memory. With the last two national champions coming from Penn State’s heated rivals, there’s a precedent for how a Big Ten school can manage to climb the college football mountain.

When you dig into it, Penn State has a lot more in common with the last two national champions than you may have thought.

Coaching Reputation

James Franklin has the unfortunate reputation of not being able to win the big one. Since taking over in 2014, Franklin’s teams are an abysmal 1-15 against AP top-five opponents, as well as 4-20 against top-10 opponents. While Penn State is almost always an underdog in these games, many hold it against Franklin for not having a signature win since Penn State’s shocking upset of No. 2 Ohio State in 2016.

However, all it takes to shed this label is one season.

Jim Harbaugh entered the 2021 season with a 2-12 record against top-10 teams in the previous five years. Like Franklin, he couldn’t win the big one. Even when he finally conquered Ohio State in back-to-back years for the first time since taking the job in 2015, Harbaugh’s teams stalled out in the CFP semifinals. Sound familiar?

In 2023, Harbaugh shed his previously poor reputation for good, winning a third straight Big Ten title and Michigan’s first national championship since Tom Brady was in Ann Arbor.

Ryan Day had a similar reputation as recently as last November. After a loss to Oregon in October, Day was just 2-6 in his career against top-five teams despite frequently having the most talented roster north of the Mason-Dixon Line. A pair of good wins against Penn State and Indiana did not save calls for his job after a fourth straight loss to Michigan, this time as a three-touchdown favorite at home against a team with nonexistent quarterback play.

Day also failed to reach the Big Ten Championship for the fourth year in a row, tumbling to the No. 8 seed in the College Football Playoff. Despite the walls seemingly closing in, Ohio State dominated everyone in its path en route to a national championship win over Notre Dame in January.

Two coaches who had reputations for being big-game chokers and had calls for their jobs went on one big run to solidify their legacies. Franklin will have the opportunity to do the same in 2025.

The Offense

The three teams are less similar when you get to personnel, but all three have strengths and weaknesses across the board, when compared to each other.

At quarterback, all three had an experienced starter. Michigan’s JJ McCarthy, Ohio State’s Will Howard, and Drew Allar all faced questions regarding their ability to win big games entering their final seasons in college.

McCarthy was selected in the first round of the NFL Draft after winning the title, while Howard is likely to be drafted at some point on Saturday. Allar, with a strong season, could go higher than both of them in 2025.

All three teams had a two-headed monster in the backfield, but you could make the case that Penn State’s tandem of Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton is more dangerous than Ohio State’s TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins, as well as Michigan’s Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards.

ESPN Top-10 Returners #WeAre x @ESPNCFB pic.twitter.com/qq5SQqP2h1

— Penn State Football (@PennStateFball) April 9, 2025

Out wide, Penn State’s question marks at receiver pale in comparison to the unstoppable trio of Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka, and Carnell Tate that Ohio State had at their disposal. While Michigan had Roman Wilson and Cornelius Johnson, they’re more comparable to Penn State.

At tight end, Michigan’s Colston Loveland, as a future first-round pick, takes the cake. Penn State returns the highly-promising Luke Reynolds, but he has massive shoes to fill in another future first-rounder in Tyler Warren. The Nittany Lions will also be able to flex the talent of Andrew Rappleyea, who didn’t get many reps last year after an injury. Tight ends were not a big part of the Ohio State offense, so they took last.

Finally, on the offensive line, Michigan’s bruising unit in 2023 was otherworldly, while Ohio State’s usually strong line struggled due to a mountain of injuries. Returning four starters from a great unit in 2024, Penn State should have a line that gets the best out of their tandem backs, while giving Drew Allar more than enough time to make throws.

The Defense

Penn State will share one perfect similarity with 2024 Ohio State, as both will share the same defensive coordinator after Jim Knowles jumped ship to Happy Valley this winter.

Despite losing several veteran defensive linemen and All-American Abdul Carter, Penn State will return a lot of talent on its defensive line, including rising seniors Dani Dennis-Sutton and Zane Durant. While Michigan’s defensive line was big, dominant, and physical, it lacked the true pass rushers that Ohio State had in Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau. The lack of size on the interior might push Penn State to the back of the line here, but it should still be a strength.

At linebacker, Penn State returns Dom DeLuca and Tony Rojas. While there are questions behind those two, the 4-2-5 system deployed by Knowles should mask it with a strong secondary. Michigan had a pair of quality linebackers in Junior Colson and Michael Barrett, while Ohio State had Cody Simon and Sonny Styles. All three groups appear similar, though a Rojas breakout campaign could tip the scales.

In the secondary, Penn State will have an experienced group that fared well last year. Despite losing Jaylen Reed and KJ Winston, the safeties room will have Zakee Wheatley, Dejuan Lane, and King Mack. They return most of their cornerbacks and appear to be in good shape despite losing Cam Miller and Jalen Kimber.

However, they lack the high-end talent that both of the previous national champions flaunted. Caleb Downs was one of the best defenders in the country for Ohio State, while Michigan had Mike Sainristil and Will Johnson.

Despite not having a true hole defensively, Penn State does not appear to have the level of high-end talent to match up with either of the elite defenses in previous years. That said, breakout players appear every year in Happy Valley, which is what will need to happen for this to be a championship defense.

Run It Back Mentality

In the days following the defeat in the Orange Bowl, several Penn State players voiced their intentions to return for the 2025 season, despite many of them likely being selected in the NFL Draft had they declared.

Allar, who had brief shouts as the QB3 in this class if he declared, started it. Singleton and Allen followed, electing to run it back and avoid a loaded running back class this year. Several others, like Dennis-Sutton, Durant, Wheatley, and DeLuca, returned on defense.

While a great sign for Penn State, it’s not totally unfamiliar. In fact, both Michigan and Ohio State saw the same prior to their championship seasons.

Prior to 2023, Michigan got key juniors to return in Kris Jenkins, Sainristil, Corum, Wilkins, and Zak Zinter. Zinter and Jenkins, notably, were dominant forces in the trenches that made Michigan so good.

Ohio State saw many players return to compete for a national championship after they came up short in 2023, including Sawyer, Tuimoloau, Egbuka, Lathan Ransom, and Tyleik Williams.

All three of these teams had players who were motivated to return, knowing they were so close to achieving their goals in the prior season. That level of team-first mentality is one thing all three of these teams share.