Penn State defenders Jameial Lyons, Kaveion Keys placed on 'interim suspension'

Penn State defenders Jameial Lyons and Kaveion Keys are both on “interim suspension,” the school confirmed to Blue White Illustrated’s Nate Bauer Wednesday night. No reason was given for the suspensions.

The news comes as the Nittany Lions report to training camp ahead of the 2024 season. The university gave a brief statement to BWI, confirming the suspensions and providing no further comment on the situations.

“They are on interim suspension handling a personal matter and we will not have any further comment,” the university said.

Lyons appeared in eight games last season at Penn State, totaling six tackles during that time, including 2.5 tackles for loss and a sack. The expectation is he’ll step up to provide depth behind Abdul Carter and Dani Dennis-Sutton, Bauer wrote.

As for Keys, he kept a redshirt year last season. He had one tackle in two games of work for Penn State and is set to be another depth piece for Tom Allen’s defense.

Penn State enters the 2024 season with high expectations once again after a 10-3 record in 2023. The Nittany Lions replaced both coordinators with Allen taking over for Manny Diaz and Andy Kotelnicki replacing Mike Yurcich.

Kotelnicki was a big splash for James Franklin, coming in from Kansas, but Allen could have a big impact on the defensive side, as well. In fact, Allen’s experience as a head coach at Indiana is important as he takes over the unit.

“I think the first thing is, you know, my last three defensive coordinators have all had top 10 defenses,” Franklin said at Big Ten Media Days. “So, they deserve a ton of credit. But I think also, how we operate the system we run helps. So, same thing with Tom. Are you comfortable with that? The head coaching experience is important and different than Manny. He’s got head coaching experience in this conference with similar opponents.

“Obviously, the four new opponents change things a little bit but I think that experience is really, really valuable. As you probably know, he’s a great human being as well. And he’s in it for the right reasons. As a relational leader. Kids love him. And he’s really just embraced his role. And I think he’s really happy to say, listen, you take care of all of that stuff. I didn’t like doing it for the last seven years anyway. Let me get back to coaching ball.”