Former Penn State tight ends do on Sunday what Tyler Warren couldn’t on Saturday

Tyler Warren has been Penn State’s best offensive player this season and is in a long line of great Nittany Lion tight ends under head coach James Franklin. However, in Penn State’s 20-13 loss to Ohio State at Beaver Stadium on Saturday afternoon, Warren couldn’t find the end zone, and on Sunday, his predecessors could. 

After Warren took a wildcat quarterback keeper 33 yards in the fourth quarter to set up Penn State’s offense inside the Ohio State five-yard line, the superstar tight end didn’t touch the ball again. Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki called three straight running plays that were stopped by the Buckeyes and the Ohio State defense snuffed out a fourth-down play designed for Warren. 

Then, a day later, Mike Gesicki, former Penn State tight end and current Cincinnati Bengal, caught his first two touchdowns of the year from Joe Burrow. Gesicki is now in his seventh NFL season and on his third team after a five-year stint with the Miami Dolphins who drafted him in the second round out of Penn State in 2018, and a one-year stop in New England before landing in Cincinnati. Gesicki finished Cincinnati’s 41-24 Week 9 win over the Las Vegas Raiders with a team-high 100 receiving yards and two scores on five catches. 

It wasn’t just Gesicki getting in on the action and reaching the end zone for the first time this year. Warren’s former teammate, Theo Johnson, caught the first touchdown of his young NFL career in the New York Giants’ 27-22 loss to the Washington Commanders on Sunday. Johnson was a fourth-round pick of New York in the 2024 NFL Draft and has 17 catches for 201 yards in his rookie season. 

Warren will join Gesicki, Johnson, Pat Freiermuth, and Brenton Strange in the NFL next season, likely as an early-round draft pick after his historically great career at Penn State, but he couldn’t add to his program-best tight end TD total against the Buckeyes this weekend.