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Can you name every Penn State football captain of the James Franklin era?

Greg Pickelby:Greg Pickel•05/18/25•

GregPickel

dominic-deluca-penn-state-football-5-on3
Penn State linebacker Dominic DeLuca. (Credit: Steve Manuel | Blue White Illustrated)

Penn State coach James Franklin will oversee the selection of his 12th set of captains at some point this summer. Four Nittany Lions who held that honor in 2024 return in 2025 and figure to hold it again. But, they will not be alone in doing so. It’s simply a matter of who else gets enough votes to join them at the top of the player leader list.

Around this time a year ago, Franklin explained how the process works.

“We did a vote [a couple of weeks ago], and a lot of times, we do that vote right before the summer starts because we would like to go into the summer with some of that leadership,” Franklin said in June of 2024 “But, we only make the decision if there’s clear and obvious guys in terms of the vote. Like, if there was one guy dramatically on defense, one guy dramatically on offense that got enough votes, or on special teams to make that decision now, [we would]. And, it wasn’t.

“[Not naming any captains yet] will give us an opportunity to continue to evaluate, give the players more time to earn that from their teammates and from the staff, and then we’ll vote obviously probably a couple of weeks in the camp like we traditionally have.”

Drew Allar, Nick Dawkins, Dominic DeLuca, and Riley Thompson are the team’s returning captains. Assuming each has that role again, DeLuca will join Jonathan Sutherland as the only two Penn State players to be a captain for at least three seasons in the Franklin era. The rest will join a well-respected group of former multi-year captains.

Can you name every Penn State captain since 2014?

It’s almost time to answer the question that leads the story, Penn State fans. Can you name every captain of the Franklin era? We’ll add some space between this paragraph and the answers with some fun facts about the Penn State captains in the James Franklin era:

–The most in a single season is eight. That happened in both 2019 and 2020.

–The fewest is three. Only a trio of captains were selected in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

–Since 2021, Penn State has had six captains every year: Two on offense, two on defense, and two on special teams.

Without further ado, here’s the list of Franklin era Penn State captains:

2014: 7 (Mike Hull, CJ Olaniyan, Miles Dieffenbach, Christian Hackenberg, Jesse Della Valle, Ryan Keiser, and Sam Ficken)

2015: 5 (Christian Hackenberg, Jordan Lucas, Angelo Mangiro, Von Walker, and Anthony Zettel)

2016: 3 (Brandon Bell, Brian Gaia, and Von Walker)

2017: 3 (Trace McSorley, Jason Cabinda, and Nick Scott)

2018: 3 (Trace McSorley, Nick Scott, Blake Gillikin)

2019: 8 (Cam Brown, Blake Gillikin, Jan Johnson, Garrett Taylor, Michal Menet, Sean Clifford, Pat Freiermuth, and Jonathan Sutherland

2020: 8 (Michal Menet, Shaka Toney, Lamont Wade, Sean Clifford, Jonathan Sutherland, Pat Freiermuth, Jesse Luketa, and Jordan Stout)

2021: 6 (Jaquan Brisker, PJ Mustipher, Sean Clifford, Jordan Stout, Jonathan Sutherland, and Rasheed Walker)

2022: 6 (Ji’Ayir Brown, Sean Clifford, PJ Mustipher, Juice Scruggs, Chris Stoll, and Jonathan Sutherland)

2023: 6 (Keaton Ellis, Olu Fashanu, Dominic DeLuca, Theo Johnson, Adisa Isaac, Malick Meiga.)

2024: 6 (Drew Allar, Nick Dawkins, Dominic DeLuca, Kobe King, Riley Thompson, and Kevin Winston Jr.)

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