College Football Stock Watch: Why Penn State Is Trending Up, And Alabama Isn't

Think back to this time a year ago.

Penn State entered the 2025 season as a top-10 team and a trendy national title pick. By the second week of November, the Nittany Lions were 3-6, their head coach had been fired, and a season filled with promise had unraveled during a six-game losing streak.

That's a reminder of how quickly fortunes can change in college football. The teams generating offseason buzz don't always deliver.

Which brings us to 2026, where Penn State now leads the list of teams whose stock is rising heading into the season.

FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt revealed his latest "stock up" and "stock down" teams during a recent episode of "The Joel Klatt Show."

Klatt: Matt Cambell is now the new head coach at Penn State. This program was 7-6 last season, and I think this is clearly trending up. James Franklin had one very specific issue: losing big games. Once they lost that Oregon game, the season spiraled out of control.

Campbell is a perfect fit at Penn State. His 10 seasons at Iowa State should tell us one thing: this team is going to be solid.

In this era, you're going to have years when you just hit the schedule lottery, and Penn State is set to face what I would say is a soft Big Ten schedule. They brought in a ton of guys from Iowa State, including QB Rocco Becht, whose 39 career starts are the most among returning quarterbacks in college football, and they have a schedule that really has a floor of nine wins.

The toughest games on the schedule are USC at home, Michigan on the road, Washington on the road, and then Minnesota at home the following week. This is a schedule they can do some damage with.

They’re certainly going to win more than seven games. There's no doubt. I think they