The Weekender: ESPN Labels Penn State As "Championship or Bust" Ahead of 2025 Season, Paul Finebaum Complains Big Ten Fans "Act Like They Invented Football" and Diego Pavia Declares Vanderbilt a Title Contender

By George Eisner on August 10, 2025 at 2:35 pm
Penn State head football coach James Franklin
James Franklin
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ESPN Places "Championship or Bust" Label on Penn State

Usually, Ohio State holds the lion's share of lopsided expectations relative to title contention among Big Ten teams. In the grand scheme of the sport, such an effect only seems to intensify when the school in question happens to serve as the defending national champions. But fortunately for Buckeye fans, it appears another member of the conference will actually carry the most pressure on its shoulders this season relative to winning the College Football Playoff.

Last Monday, Adam Rittenberg of ESPN released what he refers to as an "Impatience Index" for big names in college football this season. The piece sorts several major players in the CFP picture into four distinct categories including big money investors such as Miami, schools needing a breakout such as USC and teams with coaches on the hot seat including Alabama and Wisconsin.

The fourth category — "championship or bust" — features only one contender: Penn State.

Others have waited longer and endured more prolonged struggles than the Nittany Lions. But what team has accomplished more in the past eight seasons without winning a title? Franklin has had five 10-win seasons and five AP top-10 finishes. He has repeatedly beaten the teams he should beat, including Penn State's first two opponents in its CFP debut, SMU and Boise State. While most of last season's CFP participants are replacing starting quarterbacks and large NFL draft classes, Penn State returns QB1 Drew Allar, the nation's top running back tandem in Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen and a defense with national awards candidates at all three levels. Penn State has the most win-now roster in the Big Ten.

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Penn State isn't a program that enters every season with a championship-or-bust mentality, but it certainly applies for 2025.

Franklin is 4-20 against teams ranked in the AP top 10. — Adam Rittenberg, ESPN

Rittenberg also points out that the Nittany Lions seem to have unique opportunity to finally vault themselves to the top of the conference given Ohio State and Oregon must replace a combined 24 players from last season lost to the NFL Draft. PSU has not won a Big Ten title since 2016 and last claimed a National Championship in 1986 under Joe Paterno.

In the Big Ten football preview ESPN published last Thursday, ESPN staff anointed Penn State at the top of its conference power rankings going into the season ahead of Ohio State. Heather Dinich went as far as to declare that she believes the Nittany Lions should be the #1 overall team when the AP Poll releases in the near future.

The article also pointed out that Ohio State currently owns a +200 price tag at sportsbooks to win the Big Ten Championship, which would be the longest odds for the conference's preseason favorite in at least a decade and a half. Penn State checks in second at +225, suggesting the betting market agrees that this could be the most contentious race for the Big Ten title in quite some time.

Paul Finebaum Gets Community Noted After Whining About Big Ten Fans

About a month after he invoked marriage in describing his fondness for Archie Manning, Paul Finebaum continues to successfully irritate Ohio State fans and SEC haters alike with the CFB season merely a handful of weeks away.

In an interview on the Netflix Sports Club show yesterday, Finebaum announced that he plans to leave the country if an SEC team does not win the CFP title this season because he has grown weary of harassment from Big Ten fans.

Finebaum went on to complain that Big Ten fans "act like they invented football" because of the two most recent national championships won by Ohio State and Michigan. When Awful Announcing brought attention to this comment yesterday afternoon, X promptly placed a community note on Finebaum to remind him that college football was in fact invented at Big Ten Conference member Rutgers University.

At the end of the segment, Finebaum described fans of the conference as "The Little Tenners" and reinforced his conviction that Texas will win the next CFP on behalf of the SEC.

Diego Pavia Believes Vanderbilt Can Win the National Title

Speaking of Finebaum, the most preposterous comments to materialize from his show this week may not have even emerged from the mouth of the unashamed SEC propagandist himself.

During an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show from last Thursday, Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia made the bold proclamation that the Commodores have the pieces necessary on both sides of the football to "go win the national championship." Finebaum's immediate reaction to the comments was so incredulous that he had to ask Pavia if he was "deadly serious" with his belief.

A stone-faced Pavia answered by saying, "I wasn't cracking a joke. That's the standard."

Pavia helped guide Vanderbilt to its first winning record since 2013 last season and was an instrumental figure in pulling off arguably the biggest upset of the year in college football when the Commodores hosted a top-ranked Alabama team. It was the first time Vandy had taken down the Crimson Tide in 40 years, although Pavia's team still finished the season with merely a 3-5 record against SEC schools. Since 1983, Vanderbilt has achieved a winning record in conference play only once.

The outspoken Commodore has seen his profile rapidly escalate since the monumental win over Alabama last year and into the current offseason. Pavia sued the NCAA a month after the win claiming JUCO seasons should not count towards Division-I eligibility and received a ruling in his favor before the end of the year, allowing him to return to Vanderbilt for the upcoming campaign.

Pavia has also gone out of his way to antagonize more than just the sport's governing body throughout his career. In September of the 2023 football season, Albuquerque news outlet KOB 4 obtained a video of Pavia allegedly urinating on the University of New Mexico's practice field during his time playing quarterback for rival New Mexico State. Earlier this summer, he took shots at the Big Ten in stating that recruits and transfers alike should "want to play with the best – you don’t want to play with the Big Ten. … You ignore those calls."

Roughly two weeks prior to those comments from Pavia, star Alabama wide receiver Ryan Williams described the Crimson Tide's revenge plan for Vanderbilt next season as, "we're going to kill an ant with a sledgehammer." Pavia retorted with a post from his Instagram account quoting a Gucci Mane lyric that states, "they actin' like they tough but don't want no confrontation."

Pavia and the Commodores will travel to Tuscaloosa to face Alabama on October 4th. It will be only the second game of the season for Vanderbilt to that point against an SEC team, with the first happening against South Carolina on September 13th.

ICYMI

The New Era of The Eleven Dubcast

Last Monday, we relaunched The Eleven Dubcast following the departure of longtime show founder Johnny Ginter under a new daily format on the Eleven Warriors YouTube channel. Every weekday, you can expect new shows with direct insight from each member of the beat — and more 11W writers soon — on the most popular topics of the day surrounding Ohio State athletics. These shows will publish in the early mornings in tandem with Skull Session, but head over to the channel now and give us a subscribe for free insightful daily content and more!

This week's topics included:

Jeremiah Smith Named the No. 1 "Freak" in College Football

Bruce Feldman of The Athletic released his annual list of CFB "freaks" last Monday, and it's no surprise to see Ohio State's star receiver at the top of the list. Sonny Styles also earned a spot among the top 10 in the rankings. Not merely a listicle, Feldman explores how both players earned Iron Buckeye honors twice during this offseason.

Ryan Day Wants to Name Starting QB By End of Next Week

In a late-night appearance on Big Ten Network this past Thursday, Ryan Day publicly proclaimed that he wants to know his starting quarterback for the 2025 season by the end of practice this coming week. Dan Hope gave a full breakdown of the comments shortly after they aired, then jumped on The Eleven Dubcast with myself to discuss what the timing of the announcement means relative to the battle between Julian Sayin and Lincoln Kienholz.

What’s Next

  • 20 Days: Buckeye football season opener vs. Texas
  • 83 Days: Jim Knowles returns to Columbus
  • 111 Days: The Game
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