NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...

Special thanks to Andrew Burd and Vince Fadale of The Nittany Blues for joining us to discuss Penn State’s roster on this week’s podcast:

At the time of his firing from Penn State last fall James Franklin was the 9^th longest tenured head coach in FBS as he had been in Happy Valley since January of 2014.

Under Franklin, Penn State was one of the most consistent programs in all of college football. Between 2016 to 2024 Penn State finished between 5-15 in the final AP poll 6 of the 9 seasons. The 3 exceptions being; a No. 17 finish, the COVID year, and a true outlier 2021 season.

This consistency of almost always being a Top 15 team allowed Penn State to appear in 5 NY6 bowl games, going 3-2 in those games, and then appear in the inaugural 12 team CFP where the Nittany Lions picked up two wins to reach the semi-finals before falling short against Notre Dame.

However, Penn State’s consistent inability to break through into the Top 5 meant that Franklin’s teams had the following records:

• 1-15 Against Top 5 Teams with the average margin in those games being a 13-point loss – largely at the hands of Ohio State and Michigan
• 3-7 Against Michigan with the average margin in those games being an 8-point loss
• 1-11 Against Ohio State with the average margin in those games being a 10-point loss
• 101-27 Against everyone not named Ohio State and Michigan

This almost predictable Floor and Ceiling at Penn State where they would reliably lose to Top 5 teams and reliably beat everyone else brewed a unique type of frustration within the fanbase and evidently the athletic department as well. That frustration came to a head this past season, which was supposed to be the year Penn State finally broke through in the positive direction.

After the Nittany Lions lost to Northwestern this past October Penn State fired Franklin. The loss was the 3^rd consecutive loss early in the season for the Nittany Lions, and the 2^nd straight loss where they were favored by over 20 points to an unranked opponent.

It’s unnecessary and beyond the scope of this article to fully unpack the reasons for Penn State’s 2025 collapse and the politics behind Franklin’s firing – our only concerns are the state of the program the new staff inherits and if there are lingering issues as a result. In summary, our conclusion is that Penn State institutionally remains on a strong footing, the available personnel and resource access look good albeit with a few momentary stronger and weaker patches detailed in this article, and the recent underperformance was a simple result of management mistakes by the previous staff which shouldn’t do any lasting damage.

To briefly sketch out the last point: in studying Coach Franklin’s teams for multiple years ATQ had noticed some long-running issues at Penn State regarding the wide receiver room, quarterback competition, and defensive balance between the front and back ends, as well as other playcalling and pace of play issues. While these issues were noticeable in every game and put a ceiling on the program’s annual record since comparably talented opponents weren’t shackled in the same ways, the program was still strong enough to overcome the drag and beat weaker competition, resulting in the widely observed perennial “10-2 purgatory.”

What appears to have happened in 2025, when several key players returned from a team that made a deep playoff run the year before and so a title run was natural to expect, was that Franklin decided to implement some changes to “get over the hump.” But instead of changing the problematic areas of his team, he seems to have made a second set of mistakes: misidentifying where the issues were that had held his program back. That led to a third set of mistakes: counterproductively changing areas of his team that had made Penn State able to beat weak teams while doing nothing to let them beat strong teams. The result was rapid self-destruction.

It’s therefore not difficult to imagine that a program which draws the same talent with comparable staff quality but simply doesn’t make foolish mistakes in misidentifying and failing to address problems should do well at Penn State. As we discussed on the podcast, a change of direction to find a more resourceful staff seemed appropriate.

That new direction is former Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell. This chart below documents the winning percentage of every Iowa State head coach since the end of World War 2 and helps explain why some think Campbell may be a miracle worker.

Here are some of Cambell’s other accomplishments from his time at Iowa State

• One of only two Cyclone head coaches with a winning record post WW1
  • The other is Earle Bruce who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002
• Head coach for 37% of Iowa State’s Total Bowl Games and 50% of Iowa State’s Total bowl Wins
• Was head coach for 50% of Iowa State’s AP Top 25 Finishes (2 of 4)
• Was the only coach to guide the Cyclones to an AP Top 15 finish, doing so twice

Duck fans may be familiar with Campbell and his Iowa State teams from playing against them in the 2021 Fiesta Bowl. That 2020 team finished 10^th in the country per F+, the best team of Campbell’s tenure. On average Campbell’s Iowa State teams per F+ where:

• The Number 32 team in College Football with a rating of 0.73
• The Number 42 offence in college football with a rating of 0.50
• The Number 32 defense in college football with a rating of 0.77

Here are Campbell’s teams and units by year by F+ rating:

Campbell on average was able to field a Top 35 team while his high school recruiting classes averaged a finish of 50^th per the 247 composite rankings, which is part of the reason he earned the reputation of a coach that is able to overperform in on-field results vs. underlying talent.

Penn State’s thinking behind hiring Campbell is clearly that he will continue to field teams that outperform their talent rating, but with even greater levels of raw talent in Happy Valley. It tends not to actually translate exactly that smoothly – diminishing returns kick in near the top of the talent spectrum, and there’s a different skillset in refining elite talent as opposed to finding diamonds in the rough. But one doesn’t consistently overperform by making foolish mistakes or allowing problems to linger, and Vince mentioned several examples on the podcast of Campbell immediately addressing issues similar to ones which frustrated Penn State fans for years.

Campbell brought over 23 transfers from Iowa State which makes up 61% of the Nittany Lions 2026 transfer portal class. In comparison to the 2 other first year B1G coaches that coached FBS College football last season:

• Michigan brought in 5 transfers from Utah that makes up 31% of their portal class
• UCLA brought in 10 transfers from JMU that makes up 24% of their portal class

Here is the breakup of those transfers from Iowa State by years of eligibility remaining:

What I found interesting is that 17 of the 23 transfers are on the extremes of eligibility remaining with 10 having all 4 years remaining due to a 2025 red shirt, and 7 are using their final year of eligibility in 2026. It appears to me that Campbell’s approach in selecting players to bring over from Iowa State was to both win now and win later.

What’s also interesting about Campbell’s philosophy on taking former Cyclones is that it’s almost uniformly applied across all position groups. The result is that every position group on the team broadly is this combination of:

1. Highly experienced upperclassmen from Iowa State
2. Penn State returners with modest meaningful experience
3. Developmental underclassmen from Iowa State

With a couple of exceptions of more experienced Penn State players, or transfers from other schools thrown in here and there.

The result is that on the whole I think the 2026 Penn State roster is in quite a good position when it comes to overall depth, but the overall average level of talent is below the what Penn State has been accustomed to in recent years. But hey, like I said, Campbell has a track record of producing teams that out produce their level of talent.

Offense

3 of Cambell’s 5 offensive position coaches come with him from Iowa State as does Offensive Coordinator Taylour Mouser who was the OC for the Cyclones the past two years after being an offensive assistant or analyst with Iowa State going all the way back to Cambell’s first season in 2016.

Add in that 1 of the 7 senior transfers Campbell brought from Iowa State was his 3-year starting QB Rocco Becht and the 2026 Penn State offense has a lot of 2025 Iowa State influence.

Through other projects ATQ had a good chunk of Iowa State’s 2026 season charted already so to add further context for Penn State Hythloday ran the rest of the preliminary advanced statistics on the Cyclones’ 2026 season. Here are the offensive stat for the Cyclones in 2025

Quarterback

As mentioned above the starting QB for Penn State in 2026 will almost assuredly be Rocco Becht. Here is Becht’s Passer Rating each of those 3 years in comparison to the FBS median rating each season

Without doing a deep analysis of the 2023 and 2024 Iowa State seasons it’s difficult to determine why Becht’s individual statistics have regressed each year and what it means for this upcoming season. Especially when the surrounding environment around Becht in 2026 will be the most unique of the surrounding environments he has played in.  

There are two potential options to be the backup QB should Becht miss time with injury. They are

1. The grizzled Senior that has played at the D3 and G6 level – Connor Barry
2. The younger potential QB of the future that also transferred form Iowa St. – Alex Manske

Potential is doing a lot of work when describing Manske. Penn State also took 2 prep QBs in the 2026 cycle the job next year after Becht exhausts his eligibility is an open question which means we can’t confidently say Manske is the starter of the future or the backup this year. Should Penn State need to go to a backup for meaningful play in 2026 who and how well they play could be instructive but right now it’s a real question of who that guy will be.

Running Back

After multiple years of terrorizing B1G defenses together, for reasons no one really has been able to figure out Nick Singleton struggled in 2025 but Kaytron Allen was still a great running back. The result was that Allen ended up getting most of the meaningful carries with Singleton falling into a clear backup role.

The name to know in the RB room for 2026 is another one of the Senior Iowa State transfers coming over with Campbell, Carson Hansen. Given his 60.9% success rate and 5.1 adjusted yards per carry, combined with his volume of touches in 2025 I would say he was the best skill player on the Cyclones in 2025 and gives the Nittany Lions a very strong lead running back in 2026.

Behind him Penn State have 4 unproven options:

• 2 Penn State players who couldn’t meaningfully crack into the rotation these past couple of years while Allen and Singleton were around
• 1 Ohio State transfer who put up poor per-carry numbers with the Buckeyes
• 1 true freshman.

I think given the number of bodies in the room Penn State should be able to find 1 other back who can spell Hansen during meaningful play but it may be difficult for them to find a 2^nd to give themselves a healthy 3-man rotation.

Tight End

Andrew described the Tight End as an embarrassment of riches and I couldn’t think of a better description myself.

Andrew Rappleyea returns and while he didn’t put up the sparkling per target numbers Khalil Dinkins did last year Rappleyea’s stats are nothing to scoff at either with a 58.82% success rate and 6.82 yards per target. In addition to Rappleyea 3 transfers from Iowa State also enter the room in 2026. 2 Seniors that have strong per-target numbers:

• Brahmer: 55.26% success rate 8.4 YPT
• Burkle: 60.71% success rate 7.0 YPT

As well as a Redshirt Sophomore who has shown some promise during garbage time.

In our conversation with Andrew and Vince there were enough jokes that Penn State should make 14 personnel the base personnel for the offence this season that I felt the need to confirm they were in fact joking.

While 14 personnel may be a humorous stretch it is a prediction of ours that the Nittany Lions will likely use 12 personnel at a higher proportion than most collegiate offences based on the strength of the Tight End room and the questions in the receiver room. Speaking of:

Wide Receivers

Penn State loses 96% of their meaningful wide receiver targets from 2025. To help re-stock the room they took 3 transfers with meaningful collegiate experience. 2 from Iowa State and 1 from the FCS.

The 2 transfers from Iowa State started for the Cyclones last year and put up a combined 1,026 yards on 62 receptions with below water success rates but slightly above average yards per target:

• Chase Sowell: 48.08% success rate 8.1 yards per target on 52 targets
• Brett Eskildesen: 48.72% success rate 7.8 yards per target on 39 targets

It’s worth noting that Sowell and Eskildesen had the best individual receiver statistics among Cyclone receivers last year with at least 11 meaningful targets.

The starting slot receiver will come down to a fall camp battle between two younger players from the class of 2025:

1. The one returner with a little bit of meaningful experience Koby Howard
2. Redshirt freshmen transfer from Iowa State Zay Robinson

While Keith Jones is a solid backup option to have on the outside given his experience at the FCS level the depth after him is a bit of a question given that it is all younger players from the class of 2025 and 2026 along with one player from the class of 2024 that has yet to break through the receiver room at Penn State the past 2 seasons. It’s worth noting that Andrew and Vince mentioned on the podcast that Campbell’s staff has been pretty quiet about Jones, which seems unexpected if he were going to play a prominent role in the 2026 offense, especially for the only other receiver with any playing experience besides the two Iowa State starters.

While the overall size of the room is good in 2026, I think Penn State will be relying upon a bit more youth than what is ideal in their 2-deep, especially given that a class of 2025 player will assuredly be the starter in the slot.

I think the fact that the projected starting outside receivers have posted average per-target numbers in the Big 12, the starting slot receiver is a battle between very two young players, while the rest of the depth is either

1. Also, very young OR
2. Unproven at the FBS level

It makes it all the more clear that this may be a heavy 12 personnel team.

Offensive Line

The Bowl game for Penn State ended up being quite helpful as 4 of their 5 regular starters from the season ended up sitting out the game to prepare for the NFL draft. This meant young but talented players were able to get valuable live reps and set-up the new O-Line coach, Ryan Clanton, with a better situation to inherit.

The projected composition of the starting line in talking with Andrew and Vince will be

• 1 returning starter
• 2 returning development players with an average 24/7 composite rating of .9716
• 2 Transfers that started all 12 games last year

For a team in transition from one year to the next it’s not the worst composition especially considering the raw talent of Goodman and Cousins.

Penn State also has good depth options as

• Garret Sexton and Chimdy Onoh are highly rated returning developmental players
• Dominic Rulli is a former walk-on, but he has had some meaningful experience at Center and played the entire bowl game as well

The only question is one of development. Before last year Penn State consistently field one of the best offensive lines in all of college football but in 2025 a unnecessary change in technique was a big reason the O-Line struggled as much as they did and the offence underperformed.

What makes this relevant for 2026 is it brings up the question of how well where these Penn State developmental players were developed. It’s hard for us to know the answer to that without seeing any of these players play under the new O-Line coach so that will just have to be a question we wait to get the answer on in the Fall.

Defense

Campbell’s one and only defensive Co-Ordinator that he had at Iowa State was Jon Heacock. Heacock ran a 3-3-5 that served as a very effective Air Raid Killer which was perfect for the Big 12. Whether or not Heackock would have attempted to continue to run this defense in the B1G or adapted his scheme for the leagues more rushing focused offences is moot as instead of following Campbell, Heacock elected to retire. Which means that Campbell will have a new defensive coordinator for the first time since 2013.

Campbell hired former USC Defensive Coordinator, and UCLA before then, D’Anton Lynn to the same position at Penn State. ATQ has been writing about Lynn’s defenses for 3 years now. In those 3 years we have concluded that Lynn is competent enough to collect the low hanging fruit left by debased defensive coordinators to turn a terrible defense into an average one and if he has the requisite talent, he can field a very good defense, but the question of how much of a value-added coordinator he is still remains.

Defensive Tackles

The most noticeable change related to the Penn State Defense from the previous staff to the current one is less to do with the alignment of the front but more so the composition of the interior defensive line.

Where the previous staff prioritized more lean pass rushers on the interior, the current staff made a conscious effort to target larger space eaters better at stopping the run as 3 of the 4 projected contributors on the D-Line are transfers that are at least 310 pounds.

Combined with Ty Blanding who saw a good chunk of meaningful reps in 2026, the Nittany Lions appear to be in good shape on the first two lines of the interior. The depth will come from four redshirt sophomores to fill out the 3-deep, 2 of which are included above.

In our projection Lynn should have more than enough talented players on the interior to run his desired defense designed for stopping typical B1G teams that are heavily inclined to run the ball. The trade-off in committing more towards stopping the typical B1G team is that it may leave Penn State even more vulnerable against the Offences that are more inherently difficult to stop. Those offences being the ones with elite passing attacks that are more commonly seen in the playoffs.

It’s a difficult strategic choice to make, to be able to get to the playoffs you need to stop B1G teams, but committing too much to stop B1G offences makes you more vulnerable to the teams you could face in the playoff should you get there.

I’m curious if this strategic choice by Campbell and Lynn is a strategic one to ensure they at least are able to win B1G games early and build up goodwill in the Penn State community and they will eventually pivot from it or if this is the long-term plan they have for the Nittany Lion defense.

Defensive End

Both Andrew and Vince are very excited that Yvan Kemajou is returning as he put on some impressive tape with his reps last year and he might be in line to be the next great pass rusher to come from Penn State. Aside from Kemajou though Penn State could run into some issues at end as they don’t have a player with any starting experience in the room.

The first 4 players in the projected rotation are all players that have only gotten in as 2^nd line players (Granville got some backup play in 2024 as a true freshman, then redshirted last year with an injury) . Following them is Mason Robinson, who hasn’t been able to get into any meaningful play in his first 3 collegiate seasons, along with 4 players all from the 25/26 classes and likely aren’t physically ready to contribute during meaningful play in 2026.

Linebacker

Tony Rojas’ injury in 2025 was one of the reasons Penn State’s season took the unexpected, ugly turn that it did as without him the linebacker play Penn State got last year was subpar. So, it shouldn’t be any surprise that the new staff overhauled the room with 3 experienced transfers from Iowa State plus an additional West Virginia transfer even though Rojas is also returning from a torn ACL he suffered in the UCLA game in early October.

Rojas is trending well and if he can get back to his pre-injury form he should be a difference maker in this room. We just anticipate he may not be 100% until at least a year post injury sometime in October of this year.

In the early part of the season the 3 Iowa State transfers with experience give this unit a good floor and good depth along with Alex Tatsch who played admirably in a handful of meaningful reps as a true freshmen in 2025 and is back for 2026. If Rojas can return to 100% this should be a strong unit for Penn State’s defense.

Secondary

Penn State loses nearly all of its Safety reps from 2025 and has rebuilt the room quickly by taking in 5 transfers. 3 of which are experienced transfers from Iowa State who will join Vaboue Toure, who played in the bowl game, to fill out the 2-deep with the depth coming from two developmental ACC transfers.

It’s the opposite story at corner and Nickel as Penn State returns three players from last year’s team that had significant meaningful rep shares but didn’t take any transfers to supplement the room. The 3 Starters are nearly set in stone with last years starters Zion Tracy and Audavion Collins returning along with Daryus Dixon who got a considerable amount of reps as a back-up. Behind them is a bit of a question mark as Penn State likely has enough players at Corner but they are all exclusively class of 2025 and 2026 guys making this a very young room for 2026.

More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos