Penn State’s wide receiver room cleared out after a disastrous end to the 2024 season. No Nittany Lion wide receivers caught a pass in their 27-24 Orange Bowl loss to Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff semifinal, promoting WR1 Harrison Wallace III and WR2 Omari Evans to flee for the transfer portal.
Wallace drew plenty of big-time interest and eventually signed with Ole Miss, and after a much longer recruitment period and a flirtation with Syracuse, Evans found his way across the country to Washington. He will have one year of eligibility remaining for head coach Jedd Fisch who is entering his second year in Seattle.
Evans posted career highs in 2024 with 21 catches for 415 yards and five touchdowns, but was noticeably absent in Penn State’s biggest games, failing to haul in a catch in the Orange Bowl, and against Ohio State in the regular season. He did, however, make a 21-yard touchdown grab in the Big Ten Championship Game against Oregon, a 45-37 Penn State loss.
While he’s staying in the conference, Evans won’t be on Penn State’s schedule in 2025. The Nittany Lions bested the Huskies in 2024 at Beaver Stadium 35-6 and again Evans was kept out of the stat sheet with no catches and just one carry for one yard.
Though Evans did not show out in front of Fisch, the second-year head coach was desperate after the departure of Johntay Cook II, his program’s transfer portal prize of the offseason. Cook, a former Texas Longhorn, was in Seattle for just two days before he and the program mutually parted ways. Cook is now likely to wait until the Spring transfer portal window to find his next program.
The loss of Evans, Penn State’s primary deep threat, will be mitigated by the transfer portal addition of Devonte Ross from Troy. Ross caught 76 passes for 1,043 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2024. On throws over 20 yards downfield, the 5-foot-11 161-pound junior had 10 receptions for 398 yards and five of his 11 trips to the end zone.