When the Associated Press released its preseason college football poll on Aug. 11, a sight ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum found surprising appeared near the top of its rankings.
Texas being the No. 1 team in the country was not the surprising part. The Longhorns nearly won last year's SEC championship, upgraded their roster with additions from the transfer portal and a highly-touted recruiting class and are handing the reigns of the offense to redshirt freshman quarterback Arch Manning, who many outlets project to be an All-American talent.
The aforementioned surprising thing, however, can be found just below Texas.
Sitting five points (teams get 25 points for a first-place vote, 24 for a second-place vote, etc.) behind the Longhorns was Penn State, another strongly-built squad that has one of the 2026 NFL Draft's top quarterback prospects in Drew Allar.
Finebaum, while historically critical of the Nittany Lions, said during a July 28 appearance on "McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning" that they are "the best team" in the Big Ten Conference.
Shortly after the AP poll went live this past Monday, however, Finebaum slightly changed his tune during an appearance on SportsCenter, believing Penn State's ranking to be too high.
“I’ve heard the same thing about Penn State a number of times. I realize this is the best team on paper, but James Franklin is still the coach," Finebaum said, via On3's Dan Morrison. "You don’t get paper to rule. You have to physically do it, and I’ll believe it when I see it, when Penn State actually wins a big game.”
The Nittany Lions have a number of chances to prove Finebaum wrong this year. Penn State's regular-season schedule includes three games against preseason top-25 teams: No. 7 Oregon (at home on Sept. 27), No. 3 Ohio State (on the road on Nov. 1) and No. 20 Indiana (at home on Nov. 8).