Penn State redshirt report: Which Nittany Lions debuted against Kent State?
Penn State introduced many members of the Class of 2024 to the 109,00-plus fans at Beaver Stadium on Saturday. By the time the clock hit all zeros to cement a 56-0 win for the Lions over Kent State, 14 true freshmen had seen the field, including 10 who were making their college debuts.
“We’ve still got to clean up some penalties, too many penalties, but overall, probably the most important thing is our veteran players played well enough to get a ton of guys in the locker room on the field who deserve to play, and that’s going to be great film for us to teach off of,” Lions coach James Franklin said. “That’s going to be great film for us to learn from.”
Here’s the latest redshirt report
How did the Penn State freshmen play against Kent State?
Penn State made a concerted effort to get many new Nittany Lions on the field throughout the blowout. That included early snaps for defensive end Max Granville and safety Dejuan Lane, the latter of which finished with a defense-leading 25 reps, and large chunks of playing time for other first-year players, including offensive lineman Cooper Cousins, whose 44 snaps were the third most on offense behind only guard/center Vega Ioane’s 48 and quarterback Drew Allar’s 46.
“I think Max Granville was in series three,” Franklin said. “As you guys know, we’ve had some injuries this year, probably more injuries than we’ve had in a while. Whether they’re long-term injuries, or guys are going to be out a couple weeks and things like that. We’ve got a ton of respect for DeDe [Dejuan] Lane. We think he’s got a very, very bright future. I’d love for him to be behind KJ [Winston Jr.] and learning from him, but where we’re at, we’ve got to speed up his maturation process and get him on the field. Today was great because he got a ton of reps. We’d love to get to the point where you can get him and Zakee [Wheatley] playing the two safety spots, so we can get Jayden Reed back down, playing the nickel, or the ‘Lion’, or however you want to describe it.
PSU report card: Grading the Nittany Lions’ blowout win over Kent State
“But I thought he did some really good things and he got a ton of reps. So that’ll be important for us moving forward. But again, we were able to get, to me, what’s interesting, right? Is there’s ton of guys that played but played late, but there’s also a ton of guys, like DeDe, like Granville, that played early in the game, I think series three or series five. So that’s significant for so we’re going to need him. “
Granville had a great pass rush in the fourth quarter and finished with a quarterback hurry in his debut. In his, linebacker Anthony Speca netted a team-high five tackles and a quarterback hurry over 20 snaps. Lane was credited with a pair of tackles. And, on offense, Quintin Martin Jr., rushed seven times for 24 yards, Tyseer Denmark made his first reception (it went for 13 yards), and tight end Luke Reynolds had two receptions for 27 yards.
PSU redshirt tracker after Week 4
First, a reminder: Any member of the roster can play in up to four regular season games and still preserve a year of eligibility. Once you pay in a fifth, you can no longer redshirt. And, most importantly, postseason games do not count against the total. It is a regular season counter only.
Three games
TE Luke Reynolds
OL Cooper Cousins
S Dejuan Lane
One game
WR Tyseer Denmark
CB Kenny Woseley Jr.
DE Max Granville
S Vaboue Toure
RB Quinton Martin Jr.
LB Anthony Speca
DE Jaylen Harvey
DT Xavier Gilliam
OL Eagan Boyer
CB Jon Mitchell
CB Antoine Belgrave-Shorter
Zero games
RB Corey Smith
QB Ethan Grunkemeyer
DL Liam Andrews
OT Garrett Sexton
DE Mylachi Williams
OL Donovan Harbour
RB Josiah Brown
DL T.A. Cunningham
OL Caleb Brewer
LB Kari Jackson
WR Peter Gonzalez
DT DeAndre Cook
