The Penn State defensive line will get a nice boost with the return of this key player in 2024.
Following in the footsteps of fellow defensive tackle [autotag]Dvon Ellies[/autotag], a simple post on social media was all it took for defensive tackle [autotag]Hakeem Beamon[/autotag] to announce his plans for the 2024 season. Just as Ellies did yesterday, Beamon is committed to another year along Penn State’s defensive front.
Beamon announced his plans on X (formerly known as Twitter) to return for his sixth season in State College. Both Beamon and Ellies were granted a sixth year of eligibility due to the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
Beamon was a mainstay on the interior of Penn State’s defensive line, playing in all 13 games in each of the past two seasons. This year, Beamon contributed 12 tackles and 1.5 tackles for a loss. Along with Ellies, Beamon will make the life of new defensive coordinator Tom Allen a lot easier when building his defense next season.
Dvon Ellies gave Penn State some good news with his decision for 2024.
With just two little words, Penn State defensive lineman [autotag]Dvon Ellies[/autotag] announced his plans for the 2024 season. He’s coming back for another year on the Penn State defensive line.
Ellies took to his social media account on X (formerly known as Twitter) to confirm his intentions to return to the Nittany Lions in 2024. It will be his sixth year of eligibility, which became an option thanks to the NCAA granting any player from the 2020 season with an extra year of college eligibility.
Ellies played in all 13 games for Penn State in the 2023 season. He recorded 26 total tackles with 5 tackles for a loss. His decision to return for a sixth year is slightly surprising, although Ellies did not offer many comments on his decision-making leading up to the Peach Bowl.
Ellies will figure to be a key returning defensive lineman in 2024 in the middle of the line while Penn State figures out how to plug the holes on the ends. Ellies will be a reliable asset for new defensive coordinator Tom Allen, who takes over the defense following the departure of Manny Diaz to a head coaching opportunity with Duke.
West Virginia head coach Neal Brown knows his offense is going up a Penn State defense with lots of star power.
Penn State is preparing to open the 2023 season with a home opener this Saturday night against former regional rival West Virginia. In the first meeting between the two schools since 1992, West Virginia head coach Neal Brown is fully aware of just how much talent Penn State has to offer that his team will have to prepare for.
In a weekly press conference, Brown praised the star power on Penn State’s defense ahead of the Week 1 matchup. Brown said Penn State has nine draft picks on the defensive side of the football, according to WV Sports Now and reporter Mike Asti via X, formerly known as Twitter.
WVU HC Neal Brown says Penn State has 9 draft picks on defense.
Nine players with NFL draft potential on one defense? Yeah, that’s pretty good. So who are those nine players Brown is referring to?
The three obvious ones are cornerback [autotag]Kalen King[/autotag], defensive end [autotag]Chop Robinson[/autotag], and linebacker [autotag]Abdul Carter[/autotag]. King is being viewed as one of the top cornerbacks in the 2024 NFL draft pool, so long as he declares for the draft after this season. Robinson has been called a possible first-round draft pick as well. Carter is still just a sophomore, but you have to imagine he is on the radar of the draft scouts already.
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Linebacker [autotag]Curtis Jacobs[/autotag] and defensive end [autotag]Adisa Isaac[/autotag] are probably the next two to come to mind, bringing our total to five players. Other starters developing their NFL draft stock may be defensive tackles [autotag]Hakeem Beamon[/autotag] and [autotag]Dvon Ellies[/autotag]. And safety [autotag]Keaton Ellis[/autotag] and cornerback [autotag]Johnny Dixon[/autotag] are likely players to be on the big board for some teams, even if later in the draft process.
Penn State’s defense should be locked in from the start this week and season. After a strong showing in the spring Blue-White Game, Penn State defensive coordinator Manny Diaz has a unit that will be able to create opportunities for the offense to do its thing.
Penn State hosts West Virginia on Saturday, Sept. 2 at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
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Penn State redshirt senior Dvon Ellies named to Wuerffel Trophy watch list for top community service leadership.
Watch list season continued on Thursday with the release of the watch list for the Wuerffel Trophy, college football’s premier award for outstanding community service. And this year’s watch list includes one of Penn State’s top defensive linemen.
[autotag]Dvon Ellies[/autotag], a redshirt senior from Maryland, was named to the watch list for this year’s Wuerffel Trophy by The Wuerffel Foundation for the 2023 college football season. The Wuerffel Trophy is named after former Florida quarterback Danny Wuerffel.
Semifinalists for the award will be named on November 2. Finalists will then be announced on November 28 and the winner will be announced on December 7 or 8 at the annual Home Depot College Football Awards show on ESPN.
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In addition to being named to the Wuerffel Trophy watch list, Ellies has also been named to the AFCA Good Works Team watch list.
The Wuerffel Trophy has been presented annually since 2005 when LSU center Rudy Niswanger received the inaugural award. No Penn State player has ever won the award to date.
Last year’s winner of the Wuerffel Trophy was Florida State offensive lineman Dillan Gibbons. The last Big Ten player to receive the award was Ohio State defensive lineman Joel Penton in 2006.
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Dvon Ellies will get his chance to shine as a projected starter on Penn State’s defensive line this fall.
Going into the 2023 football season, Nittany Lions Wire will be looking at each scholarship player listed on the Penn State roster. Over the preseason, each profile will cover where the player is from, how recruiting websites rated them coming out of high school, and what role they will play for James Franklin this season.
Continuing this effort is a look at projected starting defensive tackle [autotag]Dvon Ellies[/autotag]. Ellies is entering his redshirt senior season and is coming off a 2022 in which he started one game and appeared in all 13 games played. Now his role will likely be elevated as he looks to continue bringing pressure in the trenches this season. Here is a snapshot look at Ellies heading into the 2023 college football season.
Now that a new coach is in place, here’s a quick look at the Penn State defensive line situation this spring
It’s an exciting time for the defensive line unit at Penn State. Coach [autotag]James Franklin[/autotag] recently announced that [autotag]Deion Barnes[/autotag] would be the new defensive line coach for the upcoming season.
Barnes, who played defensive line at Penn State from 2012-2014, is taking over the role after the departure of [autotag]John Scott Jr.[/autotag]
It seems like a natural progression for Barnes who served as a graduate assistant and was involved in the development of multiple players going to the NFL.
While the news of this hire is certainly exciting, the other electrifying thing surrounding the defensive line is they might be the best unit of Penn State football this season.
[autotag]Chop Robinson[/autotag] and [autotag]Adisa Isaac[/autotag] are the headliners of the line, but there are other players that could have a big year as well.
Here are names to watch as spring practices get underway.
Chop Robinson
Robert Goddin-USA TODAY Sports
Measurables: 6’3″ 240 lbs.
Year: Junior
Expected Role: Starting Defensive End
Chop Robinson was an absolute star for Penn State in 2022-23. After transferring in from Maryland, he was a game wrecker for the Nittany Lions. He recorded 26 total tackles, 10 of them for loss, and had 5.5 sacks.
His PFF grade of 90.6 ranked him sixth out of 862 edge rushers last season. Robinson’s pass rush grade had him fourth in the country. It’s crazy to think that he can improve his run defense to become an even better player. Robinson will be a household name if continues to produce like he did last year.
Coziah Izzard
AP Photo/Barry Reeger
Measurables: 6’3″ 292 lbs.
Year: Redshirt Junior
Expected Role: Starting Defensive Tackle
This is the starting position on the defensive line that should be watched. [autotag]Coziah Izzard[/autotag] is the projected starter, but he’ll be battling to secure that title. Last season he was expected to start alongside [autotag]PJ Mustipher[/autotag], but missed the first four games of the season due to the decision of coach Franklin.
After a bursting onto the scene in 2021 with 21 tackles and two sacks, he recorded 10 tackles and two sacks in nine games last season. Izzard has tons of talent and should be able to produce this year whether he’s a starter or not.
Check out these photos from Penn State’s shutout of Maryland in Week 11.
It started off as a beautiful day for some Big Ten football in Happy Valley on Saturday, but the rains moved in as Penn State was in the process of blanking Maryland to improve to 8-2 on the year. But no matter what the weather turned into, it was a nice day for Penn State football as the Nittany Lions were dominant on defense from start to finish.
Here are some of the best photos from Penn State’s 30-0 victory over Maryland, the next-to-final home game for the Nittany Lions this season.
Penn State awaits a college decision from a three-star recruit from Maryland, but this Big Ten school is the current favorite for the commitment.
There is no secret that Penn State values recruits from the state of Maryland, and the Nittany Lions have had some McDonogh School over the years. That is the same school that has produced current veteran leader [autotag]PJ Mustipher[/autotag] and [autotag]Dvon Ellies[/autotag] as well as former linebacker [autotag]Curtis Jacobs[/autotag]. Now, Penn State is hoping to make one more score out of the recruiting hotbed with [autotag]Mason Robinson[/autotag].
Robinson is a three-star defensive lineman in the Class of 2023 from McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Maryland, and he announced he will be sharing his college decision this Friday afternoon. While Penn State is among the many offers extended to him, Robinson is heavily expected to commit to another Big Ten program this week. Northwestern is the favorite to secure Robinson’s verbal commitment, with the Wildcats getting 100% of the 247Sports crystal ball predictions and getting a decisive 89.5% prediction from On3Sports’s prediction machine. For what it is worth, Penn State has the secodn-best chance of landing Robinson according to On3Sports with a 4.2% chance, and Virginia Tech is third at 3.1%.
So it does seem as though it will be unlikely Penn State will manage to woo Robinson away from Northwestern. Robinson visited Penn State in early April, which followed up another unofficial visit last September and last June. Penn State was among the first schools to extend an offer to Robinson, doing so in April 2021. Northwestern waited until just a couple of weeks ago t extend its offer to Robinson, doing so when Robinson made an official visit to the Evanston campus on May 13.
Robinson holds offers from a number of schools in addition to Penn State and Northwestern. Among those to have offered Robinson are Oregon, Michigan, Tennessee, Duke, Oklahoma, Stanford, Georgia, and West Virginia.
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Penn State defensive tackle Dvon Ellies is ready to contribute more in 2022. Here are some photos of the rising defensive tackle for the Nittany Lions.
Heading into the 2022 college football season will see Penn State replacing a number of key players on the defensive side of the ball. The defensive line loses two players to the NFL but appears to be in solid shape overall with the return of a healthy [autotag]PJ Mustipher[/autotag] and a stable of defensive linemen ready to step into notable roles. Among those to keep an eye on in the middle may be [autotag]Dvon Ellies[/autotag], a redshirt junior who may not be a starter but could have an impact on the success of the defense this season.
Ellies could be the top backup at defensive tackle behind Mustipher, but it would not be shocking to see Ellies get involved in some big moments given his ability to make a big play when he is on the field. Penn State caught some really glimpses of what Ellies could do in an otherwise forgettable Outback Bowl at the end of the 2021 season. New defensive coordinator [autotag]Manny Diaz[/autotag] should be excited about finding ways for Ellies to contribute to the defensive effort this season.
Penn State football snapshot profile of defensive tackle Dvon Ellies in 2022.
Going into the 2022 football season, Nittany Lions Wire will be looking at each scholarship player listed on the Penn State roster.
Over the preseason, each profile will cover where the player is from, how recruiting websites rated them coming out of high school, and what role they will play for James Franklin this season.
[autotag]Dvon Ellies[/autotag] is one of the handful of players who will help to provide some solid depth on the defensive line in 2022. After getting a chance to step into a more significant role at times last season, especially in the bowl game, Ellies could be more likely used as a backup option this season behind a healthy [autotag]PJ Mustipher[/autotag]. But Ellies is a player that could provide a spark on defense any time he steps on the field as well.
