On the offensive side of the ball, Matt Campbell mostly imported his Iowa State staff to Happy Valley for Year 1 of his tenure at Penn State. However, on defense, after his longtime DC Jon Heacock announced his retirement, Campbell went with an outside hire, bringing former Nittany Lion D’Anton Lynn back to the program from USC.
Amid the coaching turnover, James Franklin’s longtime defensive line coach Deion Barnes left for South Carolina, so Lynn brought former UCLA defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe to fill the Nittany Lions’ D-line coach vacancy.
Malloe, who worked under Lynn at UCLA before Lynn flipped to USC, brings a new identity with him from the West Coast, and the program’s first non-Iowa State transfer of the offseason, defensive lineman Keanu Williams.
Williams committed on Monday night, joining the Nittany Lions with one season of eligibility remaining. The 6-foot-5, 320-pound interior lineman will be in his sixth season after beginning his career at Oregon in 2021. He will also be the biggest defensive lineman that Penn State has had in years.
At a quick glance, Keanu Williams (6-foot-5, 320 pounds) brings size the Penn State DL hasn’t seen since PJ Mustipher (6-foot-4, 326 pounds in 2021)
— Avery Hill (@official_aveee) January 6, 2026
USC’s heaviest DL in 2025 weighs 360 pounds.
I’d fully expect even larger additions to new DL coach Ikaika Malloe’s front soon pic.twitter.com/6241emj7Bf
Keanu Williams is the new model for Penn State defensive linemen
With Heacock as his DC, Campbell and Iowa State proudly carried the torch for the 3-3-5 defense. That style requires big-bodied defensive linemen, including a massive nose tackle capable of taking on double teams and two-gapping in the run game.
With Lynn coming in, Penn State won’t transition to that 3-3-5 structure, but the coaching staff will look to get much bigger in the trenches. Barnes prioritized penetrators up front who could win with speed, but were typically ranging from 285 to 300 pounds.
While those body types, like multi-year star Zane Durant can provide additional juice in the pass rush, the best Big Ten offensive lines can wash them out of the run game. That forces defensive coordinators to allocate more resources to stopping the run and puts more stress on defensive backs. Lynn would rather be stout up front to play with more light boxes against the run and get more bodies into coverage. It’s a strategy that has worked for the 36 year old across his three seasons as a defensive coordinator.
That type of overhaul won’t happen in one offseason, but Lynn and Campbell has gotten off to a good start. With Durant heading to the NFL and Randy Airika, Kaleb Artis, Owen Wafle, Sam Siafa, and Xavier Gilliam (all between 290 and 305 pounds) all entering the transfer portal, they have a clean slate to work with.
Williams won’t be the last addition to the interior defensive line in the transfer portal, and he’ll probably be the model that Campbell, Lynn, and Malloe look to replicate throughout the rest of the defensive line room.