In Penn State’s Week 6 loss to USC, Iowa State transfer safety Marcus Neal Jr., who was seen as one of the likely gems coming from Ames to Happy Valley with head coach Matt Campbell, was benched. After coming off the bench as a rotational safety for the first time in Week 5, he didn’t play a snap in Week 6.
Neal had struggled mightily in coverage since the start of Big Ten play, including being the player who fell to allow Wisconsin’s 72-yard game-winning touchdown. It seems the move to the Big Ten leveled him up beyond his abilities, and he’s not alone.
The main criticism of this Penn State roster is that its primary nucleus came from Campbell’s 8-4 Cyclones team, and it’s hard to imagine that group leading a successful season in the Big Ten. That’s proven to be true.
In Campbell’s defense, athletic director Pat Kraft took 54 days to hire a new head coach and publicly whiffed on BYU’s Kalani Sitake late enough in the process that Campbell missed the early signing period and didn’t have a long runway to prepare for the transfer portal.
With little time and even fewer options, familiarity won out. But now, six games into his first year with a 3-3 record and still searching for his first Big Ten win as the Nittany Lions prepare to head to Ann Arbor in Week 7, it’s time for Campbell and his staff to cut bait with at least a few more Iowa State transfers, even if the options behind them aren’t particularly enticing either.
Kooper Ebel and Jeremiah Cooper are unplayable right now
Campbell brought a bevy of linebackers over from his 3-3-5 defense and Iowa State. Enough that he moved Caleb Bacon to edge part-time, though he’s playing more off-ball linebacker now amid Kooper Ebel’s struggles. The group was supposed to be one of the strengths of defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn’s unit as Campbell and his players transitioned to Penn State’s traditional 4-2-5 defense.
That transition, which changes responsibilities and the amount of space off-ball linebackers are asked to cover, hasn’t gone very smoothly. Ebel, Bacon, and even backup Cael Brezina have all shown that they don’t have the sideline-to-sideline speed required at this level, which is part of why the 3-3-5 worked so well for them.
But even beyond schematic changes, Ebel, who was given the green dot as the starting MIKE linebacker, has had major issues tackling. He led the team in missed tackles in Week 5 when Northwestern cleared 400 yards rushing, and didn’t look much better as he played just 46 of Penn State’s 64 defensive snaps against USC.
Ebel didn’t lead the team in missed tackles against USC because, from the third level, where Penn State’s multi-year starter at nickel, Zion Tracy, moved back to safety, Jeremiah Cooper grabbed the mantle. For all his struggles as a tackler, Cooper was somehow worse in coverage, allowing two touchdowns with little to no resistance.
It's time for D'Anton Lynn to phase out a few more Iowa State transfers on defense. This is what it looks like when you bring Big 12 athletes into the Big Ten. pic.twitter.com/UID4FqQSym
— Josh Yourish (@JYourish3) October 12, 2026
Penn State needs to embrace a youth movement
There aren’t many options behind Ebel and Cooper. And some of the options Penn State does have are more Iowa State transfers. This isn’t to say all Iowa State transfers are bad, because Benjamin Brahmer has been a key piece for the offense, and Chase Sowell appears to be a capable receiver at the Big Ten level, though ideally not a No. 1.
It’s to say that these players, who happen to have come from Ames, are playing badly, and whatever deference was allotted to them by the coaching staff for their previous performances has been spent. Whether it’s giving Alex Tatsch the green dot when he gets healthy and sticking him next to Tony Rojas, or playing redshirt freshman Xxavier Thomas at safety to spell Tracy and Jamison Patton, another Iowa State transfer who is playing much better than Cooper, it’s now worth a shot.
Even if their play or the defense as a whole is just as bad, it’s worthwhile to know if they can be future pieces for this team next season because it’s painstakingly obvious that Ebel and Cooper, who is out of eligibility after 2026, won’t be.
Offensively, left guard Trevor Buhr and running back Carson Hansen can be similarly criticized for their play. At least in Hansen’s case, there are intriguing options behind him, though the interior offensive line with Buhr and Texas State transfer center Brock Riker appears to be so broken that nobody can run the ball behind it. Particularly with Will Tompkins’ injury, Penn State is probably stuck with Buhr.
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