5 wide receivers Penn State needs to target in the transfer portal for 2025

James Franklin vowed that Penn State would be aggressive in the transfer portal this season and the assumption is that most of that aggressiveness would go towards filling the program’s desperate need for talent at wide receiver. The Nittany Lions could use help on the defensive line for 2025 and depth in the secondary, but more than anything, Franklin needs to pluck talented wide receivers, not just to convince Drew Allar not to leave for the NFL, but to allow his quarterback to thrive in his senior year without Tyler Warren around. 

After the offseason departure of KeAndre Lambert-Smith, Harrison Wallace III emerged as WR1 for the Nittany Lions and answered the biggest question that the fanbase and likely the program had about him. Can he stay healthy? Aside from the regular season finale against Maryland, Wallace played every game and through the Big Ten Championship Game has 39 catches for 638 yards and four touchdowns. Still, that’s not true WR1 production, and in big games Penn State’s passing game has become even more Warren-centric. 

Wallace is likely best as a WR2, Omari Evans is best as an occasional deep threat, not a down-to-down player, and Liam Clifford and Julian Fleming are good for program depth, but for most other teams competing for a national championship, wouldn’t see significant snaps. Franklin has to do better than simply adding Fleming last offseason, and these five players should be right at the top of his list as the portal officially opens on Monday, December 9. 

Oklahoma has the year from hell in the wide receiver room. Anderson was one of the program’s five wide receivers who suffered significant injuries, playing just nine snaps in one game before missing the rest of the year with a quad tear. Now, Anderson, who caught 10 touchdowns from Dillon Gabriel in 2023, is entering the transfer portal and could be a perfect fit for Andy Kotelnicki’s offense. 

At Kansas, Kotelnicki’s offense always featured oversized wide receivers who were useful as blockers in his multiple-run game and could be big-bodied targets down the field. Even at 6-foot-4, Anderson averaged over 20 yards per reception in 2023 with an average depth of target of 16.1. While he didn’t run many routes from the slot, Anderson could be a unique Tyler Warren replacement. Between the numbers over 10 yards downfield, Anderson caught 17 of his 24 targets for 451 yards and four touchdowns. He’s highly efficient over the middle of the field which is an area of the field that both Kotelnicki and Allar like to attack. 

Penn State’s wide receivers did not play well against Ohio State or Oregon, but what stood out so much in those games was how physically overmatched Wallace and Evans were when Kotelnicki couldn’t scheme them open. Adding a big body like Anderson could begin to solve that problem, considering he’s healthy enough to stay on the field. 

Coming out of high school as a highly-rated tight end in the 2024 recruiting class, Caleb Odom took an official visit to Penn State before deciding on Alabama. Now, the Carrollton, Georgia product is in the portal and could consider the Nittany Lions as a landing spot. As a true freshman, Odom played primarily at outside wide receiver but only caught seven passes on 13 targets for 65 yards. 

If any play-caller can find a way to utilize Odom’s frame in the passing game, it’s Kotelnicki. Even with Warren leaving, the Nittany Lions are loaded at tight end with five-star freshman Luke Reynolds impressing in 2024, Khalil Dinkins likely to return, Andrew Rappleyea expected to get healthy for 2025, and four-star Andrew Olesh flipping his commitment from Michigan to sign with Penn State last week. However, Odom would be a hybrid wide receiver/tight end, who is an ideal target in the red zone because of his size. 

Odom would not provide the field-stretching ability that Anderson does, but Franklin and his staff have a better chance of landing him considering their prior relationship. 

While physicality is something that Penn State needs in its wide receiver room, adding another downfield speed threat wouldn’t hurt either. In his second year at FIU, after two seasons at Memphis, the Tennessee native caught 62 passes for 1,172 yards and 12 touchdowns. Among players with at least 50 targets, Rivers finished second in the country to Ole Miss’s Tre Harris in yards per route run. 

This final year of eligibility will be a pit-stop for Rivers before the NFL, and he’ll need a quarterback with the arm to showcase his ability as a field stretcher against top-level competition. In that case, heading to Penn State to play with Allar seems like a perfect fit. 

A true home-run hitter, 537 of his Rivers receiving yards and eight of his touchdowns came on just 13 catches of targets of 20 yards downfield. However, he’s not a one-trick pony. Rivers averages 6.8 yards after the catch per reception and over six yac/rec on throws of less than 10 air yards. Rivers would be an upgrade over Omari Evans as a deep threat, and more dynamic than Wallace with the ball in his hands. 

With a new offensive coordinator and transfer quarterback Brock Vandagriff, Kentucky finished 115th in the country in passing offense despite having two electric wide receivers. Now, after a one-win SEC season, both Barion Brown and Dane Key have entered the transfer portal in search of a new home. Of the two, Key is the best fit at Penn State. 

The veteran wideout caught 47 passes for 715 yards and two touchdowns and was targetted 92 times in 2024. He can eat up ground with his long stride while showcasing physicality at the catch point and impressive body control on the sidelines or over the middle. Key can threaten a defense vertically, but more importantly, he has the catch radius to make a play for Allar (or Pribula if Allar leaves for the NFL). 

So often in 2024, Allar has had to throw a perfect ball if Kotelnicki is unable to scheme Wallace or Evans wide-open, and every 50/50 ball, like the one that cost Penn State a chance to tie the game on its final possession against Oregon, feels like a 70/30 proposition in favor of the defense. With Key, Allar could up his risk profile to a necessarily aggressive level and still trust that he won’t get burned for it, which is tangibly valuable to the offense, but also incredibly valuable to his psyche. 

Like Anderson, 2024 was not as kind to Kevin Concepcion as 2023 was, but he’s still a high-priority target and potentially the best player that Frankin could land this offseason. As a freshman in 2023, Concepcion caught 71 passes for 839 yards and 10 touchdowns with 41 carries for 320 yards. He took a step back in 2024, finishing with 53 grabs for 460 yards and six scores with only 36 yards on the ground, but there’s a good reason. 

While freshman QB CJ Bailey showed a lot of promise, NC State’s offense took a step back once Coastal Carolina transfer Grayson McCall suffered a concussion that forced him to retire from football. Concepcion’s drop-off in product reflects that, but he’s just as dynamic an athlete and still a perfect fit for Kotelnicki. 

Kotelnicki likes bigger receivers, at least that’s his recent history at Kansas, but the play-designer that had his tight end snap the ball on the same play he caught a touchdown this season would love the versatility of a guy like Concepcion. Kotelnicki could play him in the backfield because of his effectiveness as a ball carrier, use him on jet sweeps and interesting cross-formational motions, and in the passing game, Concepcion will consistently win from the slot. 

There is no other player currently in the transfer portal who could raise Penn State’s offensive ceiling more than Concepcion.