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Penn State hosting top transfer portal receiver Trebor Pena on Friday

Greg Pickelby:Greg Pickel•04/18/25•

GregPickel

Syracuse WR Trebor Pena
© Mark Konezny-Imagn Images

Penn State is hosting the top available receiver in the NCAA transfer portal on Friday. Per On3’s Pete Nakos, former Syracuse pass catcher Trebor Pena is in State College for a visit. The transfer portal insider reported Thursday that 25 programs reached out to the New Jersey native, and that Miami was another school with interest in him, as well. Texas Tech is another school reportedly involved in the race to land him.

Pena is entering his fifth college football season. He had his best season to date in 2024. He hauled in 84 passes for 941 yards and nine touchdowns for the Orange last season. His career stat line is 109-1212-10. Syracuse coach Fran Brown suggested that his decision to enter the portal was partially but not completely NIL-related.

More: Penn State transfer portal headquarters

“First of all, I love the kid. Trebor’s my guy,” Brown said of Pena on Cuse Sports Talk. “I recruited him, he came and played for me at Temple. Then, he got here. That was, what, six years ago? Then, I got here, and Trebor hadn’t played. I think he had 20 catches before we got here in four years. And there were somethings I had to help Trebor with, that we helped him with as a staff, and then he got better and had a really good year last year. Did an amazing job. As all the guys left, there’s a lot of pressure, I’ll say, in the world. Everybody don’t always handle everything accordingly that I would maybe handle it or you may handle it.

“But what I’ll tell you is this, we paid him enough. He was going to be paid more. There were different things that would go there. But there were some numbers that were asked of me that I didn’t feel I would be able to do and move on. Of course, I treat him right, I took care of him. Done everything that was needed. I just said, yo, you got to go. … I prayed on it and I kept going through things, and it was like, why would I try to convince somebody to be somewhere when I know the offense works? Because at Baylor, there was a lot of success with these receivers that all went to the NFL. There was success at other places. I was just like, now I have to tell him he needs to go.”

Penn State added two receivers coming out of the winter transfer portal window. It currently has 15 on the roster.

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