When it comes to the offseason in college football, Penn State head coach James Franklin’s strategy has not been to spend big with NIL dollars to get talent from the portal but to use those resources to keep his players out of it. Franklin has made four portal additions already this offseason, but his biggest move so far is retaining star junior defensive lineman Zane Durant who announced on Saturday that he plans to return to Happy Valley.
Durant was a key member of Franklin’s loaded 2022 recruiting class, a group that has already started to splinter after the Nittany Lions were bounced from the College Football Playoff with a 27-24 loss to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. Superstar defensive end Abdul Carter, also in the 2022 recruiting class, has already announced that he is heading for the league, and that was no surprise. So, the big questions have been about quarter Drew Allar, running backs Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen, and Durant.
The 6-foot-1 288-pound junior led Penn State in snaps along the interior of its defensive line, playing 658 in 2024 and posting four sacks and 11 tackles for loss. Though he’s a bit undersized, with Durant’s physicality and athleticism he has taken over games on the inside and was third on the team in quarterback pressures behind Carter and Dani Dennis-Sutton.
Penn State’s defensive line will be gutted this offseason with the departure of Carter and the graduations of Coziah Izzard, Dvon J-Thomas, and Alonzo Ford Jr. so bringing Durant back for 2025 had to be, if not priority No. 1 for Franklin after the Orange Bowl went final, pretty close to the top of the list.
Since that 2022 recruiting class, which ranked No. 8 in the country, Franklin has not landed another top 10 high school class, so retaining as much talent from that now veteran group will be crucial to his chances of returning to the 12-team College Football Playoff.