Sunday Column: Penn State looks to run it back without some major star power. Can it be replaced?

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Penn State’s annual Pro Day lacked a little star power this year. Not because the Nittany Lions didn’t produce any first-round talent; on the contrary, the first couple rounds of April’s NFL Draft will likely include several alumni, but because a pair of soon-to-be multi-millionaires — Abdul Carter and Tyler Warren — sat out the festivities as they were still recovering from injuries on the heels of a 16-game season.

How the Nittany Lions replace those stars in 2025, at both the positions they play and the sort of impact they had on the field, should be one of the keys to another promising season.

Losing Carter, the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, Warren, who shattered numerous school receiving records, and Jaylen Reed and Jalen Kimber, who led a quietly excellent secondary that played without the quietly excellent KJ Winston, would be enough to cause concern at most programs. Vets like linebacker Kobe King, defensive lineman Amin Vanover and offensive lineman Sal Wormley will be missed as well.

But Penn State has a few assets that strongly suggest it will once again feature star-quality, game-changing players on both sides of the ball this season. The first is, um, the actual stars. Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen are both returning, when either or both could have easily gone pro or left for a bigger bag and a chance to star in their own backfield show. Drew Allar’s star shine is a little more complicated (more on this in a bit), but there aren’t too many high-level programs who wouldn’t trade their QB1 for Penn State’s. Dani Dennis-Sutton had a breakout 2024 season that paled in comparison only to Carter’s and should again be a force off the edge, while Zane Durant will provide production and leaderships to a young DT group in need of both.

The second piece is the depth of talent the Nittany Lions have built throughout the roster via conventional recruiting and the transfer portal. That not only means numerous younger players and transfers will have opportunities to step into larger, if not starring roles, this fall, but that almost-stars, like Zakee Wheatley, Luke Reynolds and Anthony Donkoh will take on larger roles in terms of expected production and leadership. If that sounds overly optimistic, remember that it wasn’t that long ago that Warren was the team’s third tight end and Carter was a talented but inconsistent outside linebacker.

The third, and maybe the most important, piece is the star-makers Penn State has in the building; namely, the offensive and defensive coordinators. Warren became the type of stud tight end who would fit any offense, but Andy Kotelnicki crafted his first Penn State offense around 44, taking advantage of his unique skill set in a way we hadn’t previously seen around here. It’s not hard to envision him continuing to build on what he’s already established with Allar who, a couple of untimely quarters against Notre Dame aside, was far more composed and dynamic last season than he had been in 2023 despite having very little to work with at wide receiver.

Carter was a game-wrecker because of his talent and ability to quickly adapt to the demands of a new position, but also because Tom Allen’s defense was sturdy and aggressive enough around him to prevent opposing offenses from doing much (not that they could do much) to limit his impact. And now, the Penn State defense will be led by one of the few men in the country who has a better defense-improving résumé than Allen or Manny Diaz in Jim Knowles, who turned defenses at Duke from punchlines into punchers, directed one of the country’s top defenses at Oklahoma State, then led the best defense in the country to a national championship this past season in Columbus.

Talent makes stars, but the best coaches develop schemes that best utilize that talent, which benefits both team and player, and Penn State—thanks to some big-check writing by athletic director Pat Kraft—has arguably its most dynamic set of coordinators in the James Franklin era.

You can look up and down the Nittany Lions’ roster and see developing stars, or you can see a young group that might need some seasoning and require more dragging along than the veterans in place can muster. And, truly, Penn State’s success in 2025 might be more about who steps up when a starter is inevitably injured rather than whether that starter develops into a star or not; at this level, winning is as much about your weaknesses than the power of your strengths. But the Nittany Lions are going to need stars to develop and to shine in the biggest moments against what looks to be an even tougher schedule if they’re going to find themselves in playoff contention for the second straight year. They might not be supernovas on the Carter or Warren scale, but it would be a surprise if the 2025 team didn’t wind up with at least couple of breakout players who will have changed their futures by Pro Day 2026.