Penn State Football: Taylor Stubblefield will not return as WR coach in 2023

Penn State Football had its first coaching shuffle of the offseason on Sunday night

Penn State Football wide receivers coach Taylor Stubblefield announced he will not return to the Nittany Lions in 2023 on Sunday evening.

The program later released a statement saying Stubblefield “has been relieved of his duties, effective immediately.”

The former star wide receiver at Purdue was the wide receivers coach in Happy Valley since the 2020 season.

Under Stubblefield, Jahan Dotson turned into a first-round pick and Parker Washington developed enough in three years to declare for the draft as a true junior. The overall group performed well under Stubblefield, especially considering the woes the offense went through as a group in 2020 and 2021.

The play of his players on the field leads to this move being somewhat of a shock. Stubblefield did have some short comings when it came to recruiting though. The Nittany Lions landed only one wide receiver in 2023 recruiting class and are yet to land a wide receiver in the transfer portal this offseason.

Collecting talent at the wide receiver position is as important as it’s ever been in college football. The 2019 LSU national championship team had three NFL wide receivers on it, while the 2020 Alabama national championship team had three NFL wide receivers as well.

The Nittany Lions have had NFL caliber wide receivers in past years, but they haven’t been able to stack multiple star wide outs on the same roster since 2019.

Where Penn State football goes from here is unclear. The Nittany Lions did just hire former Tulsa WR coach Calvin Lowry as an assistant earlier this month. James Franklin has gone for home runs with his recent hires though. The likes of defensive coordinator Manny Diaz and safeties coach Anthony Poindexter were big moves recently.