Tag: Malik McClain

Penn State safety King Mack to enter transfer portal along with three others

Former top recruit King Mack along with three other Nittany Lions enter the transfer portal

One of Penn State’s prized recruits from the Class of 2023 is entering the transfer portal. Safety [autotag]King Mack[/autotag], the no. 93 player in last year’s class, reposted a post on his Instagram account announcing his intent to transfer after it was reported earlier. Three other Nittany Lions have also entered the portal, per multiple reports.

Mack saw plenty of snaps in last month’s spring game and would have seen an increased role this fall after appearing in all 13 games last season.

In his brief one-year stint in Happy Valley, Mack compiled just three tackles in his limited snaps. After burning his redshirt last year, he will have three years of eligibility remaining.

Others to enter the portal include running back [autotag]London Montgomery[/autotag], a standout during Penn State’s Blue-White game, offensive lineman Golden Israel-Achumba, and wide receiver [autotag]Malik McClain[/autotag].

The transfer portal officially closed on May 1, but due to paperwork being processed, not all transfers were reported until after the fact. We will now wait until Penn State moves to bring in players from the portal.

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Penn State hosting intriguing transfer portal WR this weekend

Penn State is hosting a key transfer receiver target this weekend

One of the major areas of need for the Penn State Nittany Lions is developing a wide receiver room that is up to the standard that elite programs across the country have and should have.

That was one of their biggest weaknesses throughout the year.

With just the Peach Bowl remaining before closing the book on Penn State’s 2023-24 season, [autotag]James Franklin[/autotag] and his staff are officially looking to the transfer portal to see if they can get a quick upgrade.

It worked with Mitchell Tinsley before the 2022-23 season, but failed with [autotag]Dante Cephas[/autotag] and [autotag]Malik McClain[/autotag] before this season.

Franklin is hoping to avoid that this go around and get one or multiple players into their offense who are ready to contribute right away.

According to Tyler Calvaruso and Tyler Dohn of 247Sports, the Nittany Lions are hosting Miami transfer wide receiver Colbie Young for an official visit to campus this upcoming weekend.

The 6’5″ 215 pounder originally spent one year at Lackawanna College in Scranton, PA. After putting up 472 receiving yards and nine touchdowns his freshman year, he decided to transfer to a Division 1 school and had offers from multiple big programs, including Penn State.

Ultimately, Young decided to enroll at Miami.

The New York native became a starter with the Hurricanes midway through his first season there and wound up catching 32 balls for 367 yards and five touchdowns. He followed that up this year with 47 receptions for 563 yards and five touchdowns.

Franklin and his staff are familiar with Young going back to the first time they recruited him when he was leaving Lackawanna.

Young is a big bodied receiver that doesn’t quite fit the prototype that the Nittany Lions have had in recent years. This could be their way of adding more size to the position with a player who has been productive at the Division 1 level.

This would be a good get for Penn State to start the transfer portal window at a clear position of need and will be something to monitor after Young leaves campus.

Best photos from Penn State’s Week 3 win at Illinois

Best photos from Penn State’s Week 3 win at Illinois.

It sure looked like a beautiful mid-September afternoon for some college football in Week 3, and the Penn State defense looked absolutely stunning. Penn State improved to 3-0 in the 2023 college football season with a 30-13 victory at Illinois, the Big Ten opener for both schools. Penn State’s defense forced five turnovers in the win, and each one of them was as pretty as could be for those watching with blue and white glasses on.

Here are some of the best photos from Penn State’s third game of the season, its first road test of the season.

Report Card: Grading Penn State’s dominant Week 2 win vs. Delaware

Grading Penn State’s performance against Delaware in Week 2

There are some weeks in the course of a college football season where you can probably fill out the postgame report card ahead of time and not have to worry about it. Penn State’s Week 2 matchup against Delaware was one of those games where you hoped things would go as planned and you wouldn’t have to worry about too many issues against an FCS program.

And they did.

Penn State’s offense and defense each took care of business against the Blue Hens in the first all-time meeting between the two schools. Delaware may go on to have a solid season in the FCS championship hunt, but they were overmatched in every facet of the game against Penn State, which is also hoping to set the tone for what they hope will be a playoff push of their own this season.

It may have been a home game against an FCS program collecting a solid check, but Penn State did just about everything you would expect a top-10 team to do in this situation. Here are the grades for Penn State’s performance following its 63-7 victory over Delaware.

Quarterback

Matthew O’Haren-USA TODAY Sports

Grade: A

After being named the Big Ten offensive player of the week, [autotag]Drew Allar[/autotag] picked up right where he left off a week ago. The touchdown pass count was down but Allar completed 22 of 26 pass attempts for 204 yards with a touchdown pass (and a touchdown run) for a fine outing before getting an early rest in the second half.

Allar showed great vision and patience and just made smart throws that were taking advantage of the holes Delaware’s defense was giving him.

Backup quarterback Beau Pribula played for most of the second half in relief of Allar. Pribula attempted five attempts with three completions for 22 yards and a short touchdown in the fourth quarter. Pribula added to the ground attack with

NEXT: Running Backs

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Report Card: Grading Penn State’s Week 1 win vs. West Virginia

The first Penn State report card is in for the 2023 season. Grading the Nittany Lions following the West Virginia game.

Penn State started the 2023 season with a glimpse of things to come this season. It also showed a few areas that could be worrisome later this season.

But after celebrating a 38-15 victory over West Virginia in front of a packed Beaver Stadium, it will be all smiles for the Nittany Lions the rest of the weekend.

Drew Allar was officially named the team’s starting quarterback with a scoreboard announcement less than half an hour before kickoff, and he looked every bit the star in the making he was expected to be. The defense had some physical battles won and a few lost, and the special teams will have to work on a few things. But all things considered, Penn State had a solid debut to be happy with going into Week 2.

With the first game in the books, here is the first report card of the 2023 season for Penn State.

Quarterback

Matthew O’Haren-USA TODAY Sports

Grade: A-minus

Was it a perfect starting debut for sophomore [autotag]Drew Allar[/autotag]? No, of course not. There were a few moments where things looked a little disorganized, but that is being a little bit nitpicky on a night when Allar passed for 325 yards (the most by a Big Ten quarterback in Week 1) and three touchdowns. Allar completed 21 of 29 pass attempts and seemed to connect well with KeAndre Lambert-Smith as his primary target. Allar took a couple of hits you would like to see him not take and NBC analyst Todd Blackledge pointed out at least one throw he felt Allar could have made better his intended target, but it was hard not to be impressed by his vision and patience throughout the game.

NEXT: Running backs

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Best photos from Penn State’s Week 1 win over West Virginia

Relive Penn State’s Week 1 victory over West Virginia with some of the best photos from the game.

Penn State fans had plenty of reasons to be happy about what they witnessed on Saturday night in Beaver Stadium. Penn State’s season-opening victory over West Virginia saw new starting quarterback Drew Allar settle in to establish a rhythm with a variety of wide receivers, and the defense held West Virginia more than long enough to allow the Nittany Lions to celebrate a relatively comfortable victory when all was said and done.

Here are some of the best photos from Penn State’s season-opening victory over the West Virginian Mountaineers.

No. 7 Penn State sends West Virginia down country woes, 38-15

Drew Allar’s solid debut as Penn State’s starting QB leads PSU over West Virginia to open the season.

The start of the [autotag]Drew Allar[/autotag] was a pretty good one. After being officially announced as the starting quarterback with about 25 minutes to go to kickoff, Allar passed for 325 yards and three touchdowns as No. 7 Penn State (1-0) topped West Virginia (0-1) on Saturday night in Beaver Stadium, 38-15.

Allar opened the game with a 72-yard touchdown pass to [autotag]KeAndre Lambert-Smith[/autotag] on Penn State’s first offensive series of the season, but things slowed down for a bit after that for the Penn State offense. Penn State added a second touchdown in the first half with a rushing touchdown from [autotag]Nick Singleton[/autotag], last year’s Big Ten freshman of the year.

Allar and Lambert-Smith connected for a second time for a touchdown in the third quarter, extending Penn State’s lead on West Virginia to 21-7 at the time. Allar would add a third touchdown pass later in the game with a fourth-quarter touchdown pass to transfer addition [autotag]Malik McClain[/autotag].

Lambert-Smith led all players with 123 receiving yards and two touchdowns. But the rest of the receiving unit had some good moments as well. [autotag]Harrison Wallace III[/autotag] had seven receptions for 72 yards. McClain ended the night with 58 yards in his Penn State debut. [autotag]Dante Cephas[/autotag], another key transfer addition this past offseason, had one catch for 22 yards in his first game with the Nittany Lions.

Penn State’s dynamic running back combo of Singleton and [autotag]Kaytron Allen[/autotag] had their moments, although neither eclipsed the century mark in the season opener. Singleton rushed for 70 yards and a touchdown and Allen added 51 yards on 10 carries. Both backs caught a pass as well, with Allen adding a 15-yard gain to his all-purpose yardage on the night.

Linebacker [autotag]Curtis Jacobs[/autotag] had a busy night with 10 total tackles, including seven solo tackles and a sack. Penn State had six tackles for a loss with three sacks.

West Virginia got a gritty effort from quarterback Garrett Greene. Greene passed for 162 yards and rushed for 61 yards with a touchdown on the ground. Running back CJ Donaldson Jr. led the Mountaineers with 81 yards and a late touchdown run. Transfer wide receiver addition Devin Carter, who at one point in the offseason was committed to Penn State out of the transfer portal from NC State, was West Virginia’s leading receiver with 90 yards on six catches.

The season-opening win had some positive energy to build on, and we can probably assume the offense is going to be in pretty good shape moving forward after watching things settle into place as the game went on. But head coach James Franklin will surely have some teaching moments to expand on with his players heading into Week 2.

Penn State will stay home next week for a matchup with the Delaware Blue Hens. It will be the first matchup with the FCS program in school history in football. Delaware won its season opener, 37-13, at Stony Brook in Week 1.

Penn State will visit West Virginia to open the 2024 season in the second half of this home-and-home scheduling agreement.

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3-star 2024 wide receiver has Penn State in top 10

Penn State in the running for this three-star wide receiver in 2024.

The question marks at the wide receiver position have surrounded Penn State since their spring game. James Franklin came out and said that he would like to add depth through the transfer portal before the season starts. In the early transfer portal window, they were able to add two transfers in [autotag]Dante Cephas[/autotag] and [autotag]Malik McClain[/autotag]. Franklin still doesn’t think that’s enough as they’re trying to add more at the position.

Even though receivers in the class of 2024 won’t impact this season, getting recruits in the program would ensure that they won’t be in this position going forward.

2024 wide receiver Jason Robinson has put Penn State in his top 10 list of schools. The three-star prospect from Texas is a former USC commit who decided to reopen his recruiting process on February 14th when he decommitted from the Trojans.

Other schools included in his list are USC, Notre Dame, BYU, California, Colorado, Florida State, Utah, Syracuse and Washington.

Robinson is a 5’10” 145 pound wide receiver who plays his high school football in California for Long Beach Poly. He had visited USC 10 times before committing and then decommitting to the program.

On3’s industry rankings have him ranked as the 78th wide receiver in the class of 2025. Their Recruiting Prediction Machine has Notre Dame as the favorites to land Robinson with a 52.3% chance. 247Sports has their Crystal Ball favoring Notre Dame to land him as well.

Despite these projections, Robinson told On3 that he plans to take his time saying, “I really don’t have a deadline that I need to be at. It’s just when I feel it, I feel it.”

He visited Penn State in mid-April, who are currently given a less than one percent chance to land the three-star prospect.

Right now, it looks bleak that Penn State will add their first wide receiver to their 2024 class, but since Robinson plans to take a while during his process, there is a chance the Nittany Lions could climb their way to the top of his list.

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2023 Penn State football snapshot profile: No. 11 Malik McClain

Where does Florida State transfer receiver Malik McClain fit in the Penn State offense in 2023? To be determined.

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.

The wide receiver position is one in the spotlight for Penn State this season and was a position attacked hard in the transfer portal by the coaching staff. That resulted in the addition of [autotag]Malik McClain[/autotag], a former four-star recruit, from Florida State. McClain joined the program for the spring semester and should be a player to compete for playing time in a contributing role this fall for the Nittany Lions.

James Franklin’s post Blue-White Game thoughts on Penn State’s search for a third wide receiver

James Franklin updates his thoughts on Penn State’s search for a third receiver after the Blue-White Game

After losing two leading wide receivers to the NFL draft and graduation, the search for passing options was officially on this spring for Penn State. The return of [autotag]Keandre Lambert-Smith[/autotag], who is coming off a solid performance in the Rose Bowl helped keep one receiving spot stabilized for the Nittany Lions, but [autotag]James Franklin[/autotag] knew it was important to find the other options as soon as possible for the offense to keep firing in the fall.

Penn State attacked the transfer portal in the offseason to bring in two options for the receiving game. One of the most likely replacements for a starting receiver position, [autotag]Dante Cephas[/autotag] from Kent State, is joining the program after the spring and will start getting to work with quarterback [autotag]Drew Allar[/autotag] this summer. Cephas is widely expected to lock down one of the starting jobs upon his arrival, leaving Franklin and offensive coordinator [autotag]Mike Yurcich[/autotag] hoping someone else would step up and be that coveted third receiver.

[autotag]Malik McClain[/autotag] from Florida State joined the program in time for spring practices and was able to participate in the Blue-White Game. That was beneficial as McClain had some good moments in his spring debut for the Nittany Lions. But the rising star coming out of Penn State’s Blue-White Game this spring may have been sophomore [autotag]Omari Evans[/autotag].

Evans scored the only touchdown of the spring game for the Nittany Lions when he found some rare open space against a tight defensive pass coverage, hauled in a pass from Allar after he scanned his progressions, and stretched into the endzone for the score (and was promptly penalized for excessive celebration).

After the game, Franklin commented on the performance of Evans and the overall search for a third passing option.

“I thought Omari (Evans) really stepped up and we need a third wideout to step up,” Franklin said in his postgame press conference. “So that was exciting to see him make some plays out there.”

“He’s strong and he’s physical, and he’s getting more and more confident day by day,” Franklin later added. “We need somebody to step up in that third wide receiver role. For the last week and a half, we moved him into that spot and obviously today was something to build on. There’s no doubt about it. He’s got all the tools.”

It is easy to overreact to a performance in a spring game, but Omari Evans certainly picked a good day to turn in the performance he did. We’ll see if that leads to a more meaningful role in the fall.

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