ESPN is taking a look into their crystal balls to see how the college football landscape will pan out in the coming years, as they do every year with their future rankings. Taking a look at what each school has to offer on the roster for the next two seasons after 2023 can sometimes be a total guessing game, and sometimes history tends to suggest teams that are good every year will likely be good in two years as well. So you can probably take these projections for what they are, conversation starters. But you may still be curious to see what the ESPN outlook says about Penn State’s outlook for the next two years.
Specifically, what does the offense look like two years down the road after the 2023 season? The way Penn State has been recruiting, it does seem as though the Nittany Lions will have some good talent on the roster, but how will the offense stack up against the rest of the nation?
According to ESPN’s future offensive rankings for the year 2025, Penn State’s offense will be a couple spots out of the top 10. ESPN has Penn State ranked 12th in the future offense rankings for 2025. And given the timing of this projection, it is fair to say there will be some questions about what the offense even looks like by then.
By the 2025 season, Nick Singleton could potentially be in the NFL after being the team’s leading rusher for three seasons. Drew Allar could be back for a third year as the starting quarterback, or he could also be in the NFL if the next couple of seasons go well. The tight end position has been a pretty good consistently productive part of the offense so there is reason to believe it will be in steady shape in 2025 regardless of what happens the next few years, but the wide receiver position could still be one position group that is lagging relative to the other positions.
In fact, ESPN’s analysis of Penn State’s future offensive ranking points to the wide receiver position as the one group that may be in the biggest spotlight outside of the quarterback position. Penn State made a coaching change with the wide receiver coaching position this offseason by bringing in Marques Hagans with the hope of beefing up its recruiting ability at the position, so we will see how that works out in the next couple of recruiting cycles. In the meantime, Penn State has some younger receivers on the roster that could step up and be major contributors to the offense.
Among Big Ten teams, Penn State’s future offensive ranking is third-best in the conference. You can probably guess the two Big Ten teams ranked ahead of the Nittany Lions; Ohio State (no. 2) and Michigan (no. 5). But it is also worth noting that because we are talking about 2025, there will be another Big Ten team ranked ahead of Penn State according to this projection from ESPN. USC, which tops the list from ESPN, joins the Big Ten in 2024 and will quickly be another talented offense for Penn State to compete with. Three top-five offenses on Penn State’s schedule should be a good challenge in 2025 if these rankings carry any weight.
Check out the full future offensive rankings from ESPN if you have Insider access. If you don’t, Buckeyes Wire has done you a solid.
[lawrence-auto-related count=5 category=10]