Penn State’s national championship expectations largely stem from the amount of talent that returned to Happy Valley after the Nittany Lions finished just one drive away from playing Ohio State for a national championship. That doesn’t mean, however, that James Franklin and his staff don’t have any talented players to replace.
On offense, Penn State has taken a holistic approach to replicating Tyler Warren’s production after he left to become the first-round pick of the Indianapolis Colts in the spring, but it’s less clear how the Nittany Lions defense is going to account for the loss of Abdul Carter, who went even higher in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
Most have turned their attention to former five-star Dani Dennis-Sutton, who spent last season as Carter’s running mate on the edge and finished with 8.5 sacks as a junior. However, at Big Ten Media Days, James Franklin and his third-year starting quarterback, Drew Allar, couldn’t stop heaping praise on a different defensive lineman, sixth-year senior Zuriah Fisher.
Zuriah Fisher poised for a big season at Penn State after missing 2024 with an injury
Throughout his lengthy career in Happy Valley, Fisher has struggled to stay healthy. He missed last season with a “significant” injury and played only 13 snaps in 2022, which became his redshirt season. Between those seasons, in 2023, Fisher recorded 14 quarterback pressures and three sacks while playing 237 defense snaps as a rotational edge behind Chop Robinson and Adisa Isaac.
Now he’s healthy, and with the starting spot opposite Dennis-Sutton all but locked up heading into fall camp, he’s ready for a breakout season, at least the two most important people in his program think so.
On Wednesday, both Allar and Franklin joined the Cover 3 podcast in Las Vegas, and when asked about the next crop of Penn State defenders, Fisher was the first name out of Franklin’s mouth.
“Zuriah was going to play a big role for us last season, had a season-ending injury,” Franklin told Chip Patterson, Bud Elliot, and Tom Fornelli. “No one’s talking about him,” Franklin continued, “there’s a lot of excitement about Zuriah being on the opposite side of Dani.”
In response, Patterson quickly pointed out that somebody was, in fact, talking about Fisher because Allar joined earlier in the show and mentioned Fisher’s name in conversations with the four hosts of the Cover 3 podcast.
Penn State’s roster is loaded heading into the season, but the defensive line is one of the few spots with question marks as fall camp approaches. If Fisher is a star for newly hired defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, then he’ll answer those questions and then some for the Nittany Lions.