James Franklin might be the only person who is happy with Penn State’s wide receiver room

Heading into the season, Penn State offense had a clear weakness at wide receiver. Last year’s leading receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith was phased out of the team’s plans before the Peach Bowl, so he transferred to Auburn and left a significant void that James Franklin and new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki hoped could be filled by Harrison Wallace III, Liam Clifford, Omari Evans, and incoming transfer Julian Fleming. So far through the Nittany Lion’s 6-0 start, they haven’t. 

At Auburn, Lambert-Smith has caught 26 passes for 526 yards and six touchdowns, despite quarterback issues. No Penn State wide receiver has more than 20 catches, two touchdowns, or 300 yards. Penn State wide receivers are responsible for five of the team’s seven drops on the season and by yards per route run, arguably the best efficiency metric for the position, the Nittany Lions don’t have a player who ranks in the top 100 in the country. Wallace leads the team’s wide receivers at 2.13 (107th). 

In Penn State’s Week 7 road win over USC, Kotelnicki constructed the entire passing game around Tyler Warren, who then set an FBS record for single-game receptions by a tight end with 17. Warren finished with 224 yards and a touchdown, and if it weren’t for the 6-foot-6 senior tight end, and the creativity of Kotelnikci, junior quarterback Drew Allar would have struggled mightily to improve from his underwhelming sophomore season. 

Yet, despite all of those issues with a wide receiver room that is increasingly featuring Sean Clifford’s little brother as a primary target, Franklin appears to be happy with their production. 

In his Monday availability before Penn State travels to Madison to face the Wisconsin Badgers in Week 9, Franklin told reporters that he has “been pleased and impressed with our wide receiver room. With their production, with their ability to impact games, and then also, different guys doing it.”

Penn State’s offense has had four different leading receivers this season, Warren, Wallace, Evans, and Clifford, and Fleming made the two biggest catches of his career on fourth-down conversions to set up Nicholas Singleton’s game-tying touchdown against USC. However, it’s still hard to be impressed with that group. 

The Nittany Lions built their offense around their exceptional talent at quarterback, tight end, and running back, so relative to the amount of investment at wide receiver, maybe Franklin should be pleased, but compared to the other College Football Playoff contenders in his conference like Ohio State and Oregon, the position should be one of his biggest concerns.