Penn State football: Team needs and transfer portal wishlist

The transfer portal doesn’t officially open until December 4, but that hasn’t stopped a lot of players from diving through head-first. So far, not many have committed, but the commitments are starting to trickle in.

Last season, James Franklin added seven transfers along with his 14th-ranked recruiting class. Franklin has won 10 games in back-to-back years and has the Nittany Lions right on the cusp of retaking the Big Ten, but Penn State needs an immediate influx of talent to take the next step.

Next year, Drew Allar will be a junior and if he has a great season, it could be his last in Happy Valley. On Thursday, Penn State hired Kansas offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki as its next OC. While that is almost certain to improve things, freshmen aren’t going to get this team over the hump, at least not right away. A few impact transfers might be a different story.

These are the positions of need for the 2024 Nittany Lions and a few of the top transfers that Franklin should target.

Wide Reciever

We have to start at wide receiver, because it’s the most obvious position of need for this Penn State team, on either side of the ball. Penn State ranked 90th in passing offense and only 58% of its receiving yards actually came from wide receivers. Leading receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith made 53 grabs for 673 yards and four touchdowns, and he’ll almost certainly be back in 2024.

Franklin tried to address this issue before last season with the addition of former Kent State receiver Dante Cephas in the transfer portal. Cephas was a bit of a disappointment with only 22 catches for 246 yards and two touchdowns. He also only averaged 3.7 yards after the catch per reception, which was a big problem for the whole team.

Penn State only managed 25 passing plays over 20 yards all season, which ranked 118th out of 133 teams. Drew Allar needed to be more aggressive pushing the ball downfield, but a big piece of the lack of production was the lack of explosiveness after the catch. The Nittany Lions can fix this with a new offensive coordinator and the addition of one of these top receivers in the transfer portal.

Mitchell had a breakout season at FIU this year and after four seasons in Miami, he is ready to transfer with two years of eligibility left. He’s clearly looking for a step up and maybe the Big Ten is perfect after a season with 64 grabs for 1,118 yards and seven touchdowns. He was 13th in the country in receiving yards.

Maybe the biggest part of his appeal is that he’s a big play threat downfield for Allar. At 6-foot-1 175 pounds he has enough size and averaged 17.5 yards per reception this season. His average depth of target was 13.8 yards downfield, but he also averaged 7.1 YAC/reception. Lambert-Smith led Penn State and only averaged 6.3 YAC/reception.

Can Franklin pull talent from a fellow Big Ten team? He should try to pry McCulley away from Indiana. This year, Allar didn’t trust his receivers to make contest catches and that’s part of why he didn’t take shots downfield. Among wide receivers, Lambert-Smith had the most contest catch targets with 11 and hauled in five.

The 6-foot-5 200-pound McCulley received 15 contest catch targets and came down with 10 of them. The quarterback situation at Indiana wasn’t very stable this year, but Brendan Sorsby, a true freshman settled into the role, and McCulley’s ability to turn a 50/50 ball into a 66% proposition was pretty helpful.

He finished the season with 644 yards and six touchdowns on 48 catches.

Ja’Mori Maclin (North Texas)

Here’s another example of a receiver at a lower level who had a breakout season and is ready to move up to one of the best teams in the country. Maclin is another example of a deep threat, who isn’t as effective after the catch, but he does it with speed, not size.

Maclin finished the year 23rd in the country in receiving yards with 1,008 on 57 catches for an average of 17.6 yards per reception. Only 348 of those yards came after the catch, an average of 6.1 yards after the catch per reception. So, most of his big plays came because of his 15.9 average depth of target. Last year, 34% of his targets and 507 of his receiving yards came on throws that traveled over 20 yards downfield in the air. Drew Allar was last in the country in percentage of throws of 20 or more air yards.

Penn State even offered Maclin, among a loaded list of other Power-5 teams interested in his services.

Offensive line

Penn State will be losing its best offensive lineman to the NFL draft this spring. James Franklin was lucky to get Olu Fashanu for 2023, but now it’s time for the stud left tackle to go be a top 10 NFL draft pick. Right tackle Caedan Wallace was a redshirt senior, so he’ll be moving on too.

However, offensive tackle isn’t going to be the priority on my transfer portal wishlist. The Nittany Lions are fine at tackle. In the 2023 recruiting class, they brought in five-star tackle J’ven Williams and four-star tackle Alex Birchmeier as their two best recruits.

Sophomore Drew Shelton got 313 snaps on the offensive line this year, so he’ll likely be able to step into one of the starting spots if Williams and Birchmeier don’t grab them. Shelton was a 2022 four-star. The tackle spot will be young, but it’ll be talented.

The interior is where the Nittany Lions have issues. Despite having Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen, one of the most talented running back duos in the country, Penn State was only 43rd in yards per rush at 4.5, and center Hunter Nourzad, along with guards Olaivavega Ioane, JB Nelson, and Sal Wormley allowed 52 total pressures on Drew Allar.

Nourzad and Wormley are graduating, so Franklin will need a new center and more interior depth. These are some players in the transfer portal that Penn State should go after.

Miner played 884 snaps at center for North Texas and only allowed six pressures all season. He is one of the top graded pass blockers by Pro Football Focus, No. 15 among interior linemen, and as a junior from West Hartford, Connecticut he could be interested in coming back closer to home to finish his career.

Miner spent three years at Arkansas State before his one season at North Texas.

In his two seasons at Middle Tennessee State, Rutledge started 17 games at right guard and was named a team captain as a sophomore. He may not be a fix for Penn State’s run-game efficiency, but he’ll keep Allar upright. This year, he only allowed eight total pressures and played 761 snaps.

The redshirt junior offensive lineman may want to stay closer to home in Texas, but he’d be an ideal fit for the Penn State offense. He started all 12 games at left guard this year and posted a run-block grade of 76.3 on PFF. Penn State’s highest-graded run-blocking interior offensive lineman was Nourzad at 74.1 and their highest-rated guard was Ioane at 65.4.

Mayers will be a people-mover on the interior to open lanes for Singleton and Allen, but he is also solid against interior pass-rushers. In UTEP’s two games against Power-5 opponents this season, Mayers didn’t allow a single pressure.

Cornerback

Cornerback was supposed to be an area of strength for Manny Diaz’s defense this season, but Kalen King did not have a good year. Regardless, King is likely off to the NFL and will need to be replaced. The same could go for Johnny Dixon who just finished his senior season but does still have eligibility remaining.

Despite King’s disappointing year and penalty that cost his team any chance of beating Ohio State, Penn State still ranked fourth in passing defense. That means, the Nittany Lions have a high standard on the outside and could use a veteran addition.

Even with Chop Robinson and Adissa Isaac moving on, Penn State will be strong at edge rusher with Dani Dennis-Sutton and Zuriah Fisher. The Nittany Lions are also set at safety with Jaylen Reed and Kevin Winston Jr. and we know that they’re fine at linebacker.

Franklin and Diaz could benefit from adding some size on the interior of the defensive line, especially after Michigan didn’t throw the ball once in the second half. Still, corner feels like the bigger position of need.

The cornerback market is thin to start the initial transfer-portal cycle, and it may still heat up later into December. These are two names that should catch James Franklin’s eye on the initial list.

Lee came into the season as a talented sophomore cornerback at Kansas State but fell out of favor with the coaching staff by the end of the season. In the regular season finale against Iowa State, Lee only played 17 total snaps.

He did give up some big plays at times with 17.7 yards per reception allowed, but he’s a true outside cornerback, which is something that Penn State’s safety-heavy secondary needs. He also finished the season with two interceptions and six pass breakups.

Alexander played his first snaps for Houston in 2023, his sophomore season. At 6-foot-3 195 pounds, he has the size that Penn State typically covets in cornerbacks. He could be a player that develops into the Joey Porter Jr. mold.

He only played 105 snaps, but was a four-star out of high school and the talent is still there. Alexander lined up at outside corner for 89 of those 105 snaps, so if he does stick, it’ll be at a position of need.