If you\u2019ve got one of the best backfields in college football, don\u2019t be surprised when the vultures start circling. The transfer portal opened like a revolving door, and Penn State\u2019s running back corps barely got a chance to take a breath before the poaching began. Rival programs reportedly made aggressive plays for depth pieces in the Nittany Lions\u2019 backfield, leaving players, coaches, and supporters on edge about how stable the position group really is heading into 2025.<\/p>\n
Last season, the Nittany Lions rolled out one of college football\u2019s most prolific ground games. Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen combined for over 2,400 rushing yards and 24 touchdowns, helping lift Penn State to a 13-3 finish and a Big Ten title appearance. With that kind of production, you\u2019d think the backfield depth would be solid, but somehow the portal drama painted a very different picture. As soon as the portal door cracked open, schools across the country tried sliding into the DMs and inboxes of some young recruits.<\/p>\n
One of them was young running back Kemon Spell<\/strong>, who\u2019s been getting interest from schools that would make most recruits jump. But Spell didn\u2019t even blink. \u201cIt will take a lot for any school to change me,\u201d he told Rivals<\/a>. \u201cJust everything about the school [Penn State],\u201d\u00a0Even before he got an offer, Spell said he felt the love from Happy Valley. \u201cEven before I got the offer, they showed good love, so that means something to me, and when I got the offer, it just felt like home.\u201d When a high school sophomore\u2019s talking like that, you know it\u2019s different.<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n But with visits set with Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Tennessee, he also has positive thoughts for other schools. Speaking of Notre Dame, he said, \u201cThe relationship I\u2019ve built with Coach Seider talked with Coach Freeman a couple of times. Great football, great academics.\u201d The timing couldn\u2019t have been worse for Penn State. Depth at RB has been tricky. Last year, Singleton and Allen combined for over 2,400 rushing yards and 24 touchdowns, but behind them, things got murky. Several backs left through the portal, and James Franklin himself admitted, \u201cIt would not surprise me to see a couple of guys test the portal.\u201d In a room expected to carry eight backs this fall, the battles are real, and schools know who\u2019s buried and who might be swayed.<\/p>\n Franklin\u2019s recruiting battles take a hit in the 2027 chase<\/strong><\/p>\n And while Franklin did preserve his RB room intact, his hold on the future now appears a bit tenuous. Penn State\u2019s 2027 recruiting class just suffered an injury with 4-star offensive lineman Maxwell Hiller, very likely to go elsewhere. Even as a Blue Chip OL target, Hiller has cooled on the Nittany Lions, and it\u2019s not difficult to understand why. As told to hiring insider Brian Smith, Hiller\u2019s childhood loyalty is coming into play big time. \u201cHe grew up a Clemson fan, and they are recruiting him. He\u2019s a diehard Clemson guy,\u201d Smith said on Locked On Nittany Lions.<\/a> \u201cSo, I mean, he could go to Penn State, but\u2026 to my face, he said Clemson was the school he rooted for.\u201d<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n That\u2019s not the kind of thing fans want to hear, especially with Penn State just barely missing out on a top-10 recruiting class last cycle. Add that to Franklin\u2019s well-documented struggles against ranked opponents (just 3\u201319 vs. Top 10 teams during his tenure), and it raises questions about whether the momentum he\u2019s building can actually hold.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, credit where credit is due, Franklin has been able to maintain a skilled running back unit from breaking apart under pressure, and that\u2019s no easy task in present-day college football. The 2025 campaign promises to be a defining one, with great expectations on the field and fresh fights off of it. At least for now, Penn State fans can rest easy in the knowledge that the RBs valued loyalty over hype. But if Franklin is going to continue climbing, he\u2019ll have to do more than defend his current core; he needs to win the wars for the future, as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve got one of the best backfields in college football, don\u2019t be surprised when the vultures start…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":124952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1444,76908,76907,2964,1641,1637,76901,76902,11651,2965,46734,76904,2871,2074,3951,1638,36524,76893,561,15787,1318,27839,2941,76900,76898,52274,76897,76892,2362,3957,3924,3949,27838,76895,3929,3950,2956,3958,2982,2942,2963,2943,2968,9321,27837,1639,76899,1317,1315,1316,76906,3952,41690,70625,2991,2990,1618,76896,76894,76905,2955,2966,62,27833,2959,290,25468,3956,2949,67,132,68,2969,1640,1615,76903,3946,3945,2957],"class_list":{"0":"post-124951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-1444","9":"tag-20250109_zma_c04_398-jpg","10":"tag-20250109-1563_notre_dame_vs_penn_state-jpg","11":"tag-abbild","12":"tag-am","13":"tag-an","14":"tag-b10","15":"tag-b1g","16":"tag-big","17":"tag-cals","18":"tag-cfp","19":"tag-cfplayoff","20":"tag-college","21":"tag-conference","22":"tag-dame","23":"tag-der","24":"tag-ein","25":"tag-eins","26":"tag-fighting","27":"tag-floridas","28":"tag-football","29":"tag-franklins","30":"tag-fusball","31":"tag-garten","32":"tag-gestein","33":"tag-gros","34":"tag-hart","35":"tag-hauptstadt","36":"tag-im","37":"tag-independent","38":"tag-irische","39":"tag-irish","40":"tag-jakobus","41":"tag-januar","42":"tag-johannes","43":"tag-kampfend","44":"tag-klage","45":"tag-kollegium","46":"tag-konferenz","47":"tag-kopf","48":"tag-kredit","49":"tag-kutsche","50":"tag-league","51":"tag-lions","52":"tag-lowen","53":"tag-medien","54":"tag-miamis","55":"tag-ncaa","56":"tag-ncaa-football","57":"tag-ncaafootball","58":"tag-nittany","59":"tag-notre","60":"tag-oranien","61":"tag-penn","62":"tag-press","63":"tag-presse","64":"tag-quer","65":"tag-rufen","66":"tag-schussel","67":"tag-semifinal","68":"tag-spiel","69":"tag-sportart","70":"tag-sports","71":"tag-staat","72":"tag-stadion","73":"tag-state","74":"tag-ten","75":"tag-unabhangig","76":"tag-und","77":"tag-united-states","78":"tag-unitedstates","79":"tag-us","80":"tag-usa","81":"tag-wahrend","82":"tag-x0x","83":"tag-zehn","84":"tag-zncaa","85":"tag-zncaafb","86":"tag-zwischen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}