The most conspicuous thing missing from the Blue-White Game on Saturday was the upper deck of the west side of Beaver Stadium.
Entering Saturday, there was another hole: At wide receiver, despite the winter addition of transfers Devonte Ross (Troy) and Kyron Hudson (USC). Even Penn State AD Pat Kraft publicly acknowledged that James Franklin’s Nittany Lions needed to continue to renovate their wide receiver room in 2025.
So, by far, the biggest gain on Saturday came off the field, two hours before the spring scrimmage started. That’s when former Syracuse wide receiver Trebor Pena took to social media and announced he was portalling to Penn State.
Pena now makes three the number of wide receiver transfers who have been added to quarterback Drew Allar’s arsenal in the #107 days since the Nittany Lions fell 27-24 to Notre Dame in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff in the Orange Bowl.
The post-season defeat was stinging in a number of ways for the Nittany Lions and Allar. High on the list was that the PSU QB did not complete a single pass to a wide receiver.
Franklin & Co. spent a lot of time — and money — to make sure that, as a legitimate national championship contender in 2025, they were no longer gambling on a wide receiver room that has been sub-par the past few seasons.
In the wake of the offseason departure of Nittany Lion wide receivers Omari Evans (Washington) and Harrison Wallace III (Ole Miss), Penn State added Ross and Hudson. By most accounts, Ross had the best spring practice season among all the PSU wide receivers.
BUT…
But, it was not enough.
That’s why Penn State pursued — and landed — Pena. A New Jersey native, Pena last season caught 84 passes for 941 yards and nine touchdowns for Syracuse — including a 6-for-128 and one TD performance against the Miami Hurricanes. Pena’s announcement on Saturday came at the end of the latest open transfer portal period.
After the Blue-White scrimmage — it wasn’t really a game, with limited tackling and sessions without a full complement of players on the field, with just about 25,000 fans in the stands — Franklin was asked about the status of wide receivers room…and Pena.
“I was pleased with what we did this spring on the passing game,” the Penn State head coach said. “I was pleased with the wide receivers — not only the wide receivers that have been on our roster and their development. I think you saw Tyseer [Denmark, a redshirt freshman] make some plays today, which was great too. But then you really got your first look at Hudson and Ross. Both of those guys we think have very, very bright futures.”
But…
“But,” Franklin continued, “we’re going to need competition throughout the entire room. You brought up a subject [Pena]; I’d prefer to stay away from that and just talk about the current guys on our roster at this stage.
“But,” Franklin added, “we’re just trying to create as much competition at every position as we possibly can. That’s the nature of this level of college football. We embrace it as coaches. The players embrace it as well. And, I think we put ourselves in a position to have more competition in that room. Which is what we need.
“Good progress, but the nice thing is, you can get a ton of work done in the passing game over the summer. It’s hard to really work on the running game. But the passing game you can throw on air, you can do 1-on-1’s, you can do 7-on-7’s. There’s a ton of work that we can still get done. So that will be important for us moving forward.”
In other words, there are 126 days between Blue-White and Penn State’s season-opener vs. Nevada on Aug. 30 for Allar and Pena to get on the same page. And then three more pretty cake weeks after that — FIU and Villanova at home, then a bye week, to be exact — before Oregon comes to Beaver Stadium for a big Big Ten showdown.
DREW YOUR OWN OPINION
So, how does Allar think the Nittany Lions can assimilate three new wide receivers into the Penn State culture and develop timing with them in such a small window of time? On Saturday, I asked him just that.
“With Kyron and Devonte, with the portal it’s similar to high school. You want to bring in guys who are all about football,” said Allar, who is entering his third season as Penn State’s starting quarterback, with 6,302 career passing yards, 53 touchdown passes and only 10 interceptions.
“Specifically, with those two guys [Ross and Hudson] since we are talking about transfer wide receivers, they came and worked right away. I think it’s getting to know them and their families as fast as possible, because obviously the portal kind of goes quick. So getting to know them personally is a big part of it, and if they fit our culture.
“Those two guys have done an excellent job of coming in and putting their head down and working and building relationships with every position on the team and also the coaching staff. It’s a credit to the coaching staff, identifying guys who can help us, but also fit culturally and help elevate others around them.”
Next up? Trebor Pena.
Allar has the template for trying to make those things happen, having worked with Ross and Hudson in the spring, as well as Dante Cephas and Malik McClain in 2023 — though neither of the latter two panned out.
What did Allar have to say on Saturday about the addition of Pena?
“I’m not allowed to talk about that,” Allar told me, “but you can talk to Coach Franklin about that stuff.”
For Pena, for now, Penn State’s rev-share and NIL money did the talking.
