For the first time since 2021 Penn State football has cracked the top four in the AP Poll.
After a wild weekend of in which five of America’s top 11 teams lost and four of them did so to un-ranked competition, it was only natural to expected No. 7 Penn State— which beat UCLA 27-11 at Beaver Stadium— would move up.
It did.
Penn State is behind No. 1 Texas, No. 2 Ohio State— which it hosts Nov. 2 and No. 3 Oregon, a Big Ten team which it doesn’t play this year.
The next highest-ranked team, believe it or not, is No. 18 Indiana, which became the first team in the country to move to 6-0 following its win over Northwestern Saturday. Michigan is now No. 24, down 14 spots after losing to Washington.
Illinois, which Penn State beat 21-7 in Happy Valley, is also one of the Big Ten’s top 25 teams in the AP Poll at No. 23.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Notably absent from the top 25 is Penn State’s next opponent, USC.
Lincoln Riley’s team had been No. 15 before losing at Minnesota in a stunning upset Saturday night.
Now, the Men of Troy are unranked.
USC had the most votes among unranked teams with 98 Another Big Ten school, Nebraska, has the second most with 68. Iowa still has eight votes after its 28-point loss in Columbus. Finally, Washington has four votes after upsetting Michigan.
Penn State is currently favored over USC by between 3 and 4.5 points, depending on where you look. That game is scheduled for 3:30 Saturday if you’re watching in the eastern time zone, 12:30 if you’re in the pacific time zone. It will be Penn State’s biggest test to this point.
