James Franklin addresses retirement of Landon Tengwall, future role

Surprising news came out of Happy Valley on Wednesday as Penn State offensive lineman Landon Tengwall announced his retirement from football ahead of the 2023 season.

Tengwall cited an injury as the reason behind his retirement as he was poised to enter his third season with the Nittany Lions this year. And in a recent press conference, the first thing head coach James Franklin did was address the retirement of his Tengwall.

“I think most of you guys probably saw the statement that went out during practice from Landon Tengwall and his family,” Franklin said. “I had a really good meeting with Landon and his dad earlier in the week. I’d ask all you guys to be as respectful as you possibly can of him and his process and his family.”

Tengwall was a four-star prospect out of Good Counsel High School in Olney, Maryland, where he was ranked the No. 72 overall prospect and No. 10 offensive tackle in the 2021 cycle according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

The 6-foot-6, 317-pounder chose Penn State as his college of choice out of high school, redshirting in his freshman season before making five starts for the Nittany Lions last season. He’d miss the rest of the season with an injury, and will now miss out on the rest of his player career as well for the same reasons. But Franklin still has hope that he has a future with the team.

“As you know, I’m not going to get into the specifics of it, but I think you’ll be seeing Landon around here hopefully pretty soon. But we just talked about it as a team as well and we’re just going to be as supportive as we possibly can,” Franklin said.

Tengwall was expected to be a starter for Penn State this season, but now the Nittany Lions will have to go into battle without their left guard as they open the season up versus West Virginia on Saturday.

“This is a hard thing obviously, you could imagine he’s been playing football his entire life,” Franklin said. “So I’d ask the Penn State community and I would ask the media to be as respectful of their process as possible.”

On the field, Tengwall’s playing days have come to an end. But there’s no question that he has an abundance of support from the Penn State family as he transitions into the next chapter of his career.