It’s been fun putting together this list of Penn State’s best 25 players since the start of the 2000 season.

My career covering the Nittany Lions started not long after. Joe Paterno’s 2002 team got me started. That was an interesting group of Lions. A couple of young players on that team would play huge roles on PSU’s 2005 Big Ten championship team.

But it’s time to focus. We’ve covered 20 memorable Lions to date.

A reminder: PennLive has decided not to include any players from the 2025 season. We’re going to let some of the most talented current Lions let their PSU stories play out and then circle back to them.

Here are my final five Lions.

Michael Robinson, QB, 2001-2005

Robinson arrived at Penn State when the Lions’ program was still trying to find its footing after a couple of

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