Nittany Lions

Penn State goes into 2026 with a new head coach: Matt Campbell succeeds James Franklin, who had held the job since 2014. The Nittany Lions have been Big Ten members since 1992, after four decades as a football independent.

Joe Paterno coached the team for 46 seasons, from 1966 to 2011, and left with 409 wins. The Jerry Sandusky abuse scandal cost him his job and brought NCAA sanctions in 2012, including a four-year bowl ban and the vacating of wins from 1998 to 2011.

The nickname goes back to 1907, coined by baseball player H.D. "Joe" Mason after Mount Nittany and the mountain lions that once lived on it. Games are played at Beaver Stadium, which holds 106,304 people, and the oldest rival on the schedule is Pittsburgh, in a series known as the Keystone Classic and dating to 1893.

John Cappelletti is the only Heisman Trophy winner the program has produced, in 1973, and his number 22 is the one Penn State has retired. Two consensus national championships, 1982 and 1986, sit alongside four Big Ten titles won since joining the conference — the last of them in 2016.