Penn State football has a tall order ahead of it in 2024 between the expanding Big Ten and the growing College Football Playoffs. With trips to USC and Wisconsin on the schedule and plenty of other challenges along the way there will be a lot of things that play into how the season unfolds. One of them will be a wide receiver group that underperformed in 2023 and is looking to bounce back in 2024. A lot of factors will go into how far Penn State can go this upcoming season, but the receivers will certainly be a big part of the equation that answers this particular question.
Last Year: There is a certain irony that a program which hasn’t had many issues generating quality receivers but has struggled at times with high-end quarterbacks would end up with a quality quarterback prospect and then struggle to generate quality receivers. That’s more or less what happened in 2023 though, Penn State getting moments, but no real consistency from a room full of talent that never quite established itself. KeAndre Lambert-Smith was effectively Penn State’s No. 1 option alongside the often injured Trey Wallace, but Lambert-Smith alternated wildly between reliable and uncertain. Add in the eventual firing of offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich and you’ve got a recipe for plenty of issues. New position coach Marques Hagans didn’t exactly cover himself in glory either. All told this group had its moments, but Penn State’s limitations offensively came back in no small part to this room.
New Faces, Returners, Losses: Lambert-Smith was basically a non-factor in Penn State’s offense the back half of the year and won’t be a factor at all in 2024 following a transfer to Auburn this offseason. It’s hard to say how much Penn State will in fact miss KLS’ production, but incoming Ohio State product and former Nittany Lion recruiting target Julian Fleming could help ease that sting if any existed in the first place. Add in a healthy Trey Wallace and a host of other options and Penn State – in theory – has something to work with in 2024. Seeing will be believing. Omari Evans, Kaden Saunders and Liam Clifford will look to take the next step as well. Sometimes lots of options [the room is 16 players deep] is a good thing, sometimes it means nobody is establishing themselves, which one is true for Penn State will dictate a lot of how the season goes.
The Storyline: You don’t want to boil down an entire season to one group, and it won’t happen this year either, but it’s hard to overstate how important Penn State’s receivers will be to the success the Nittany Lions want to have in 2024. If a few players can step up to the plate and meet the occasion that will go a long, long way towards a successful offense under new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki. If they can’t, it could be another season of Penn State winning a bunch of games but not doing much of note in the process. That would be tough for the Nittany Lions to swallow in what very well could end up being Drew Allar’s final year at Penn State. So much promise, not all that much to show for it.
Overall: On paper you can look at this group and assume that Fleming and Wallace will leave their mark and that a lot of other options behind them will follow along. You could have said that last year too, and yet nothing unfolded as planned. In theory the talent is there, the question will be what the talent does – or doesn’t – do. If this group doesn’t perform in 2024 somebody will have to go and it won’t be Franklin or Kotelnicki.
