Drew Allar bypassed the 2025 NFL Draft to return to Penn State, but was immediately met with some bad news

Penn State football received tremendous news over the last couple of days when running backs Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen announced they were returning for the 2025 season. Quarterback Drew Allar is also returning for his senior season, which will give the Nittany Lions a great argument as one of the very best offenses in college football coming back.

With your starting quarterback coming back, as well as your top two runners and the majority of your offensive line, everyone knew what the missing ingredient was, finding talented pass catchers. Anyone who watched the team down the stretch of the season, you know that the wide receiver position was greatly lacking. That included a zero-reception performance by that group against Notre Dame.

If not for All-American tight end Tyler Warren, that passing game would have been seriously lacking. The Nittany Lions have already tried to find answers to that biggest weakness, grabbing Kyron Hudson (USC) and Devonte Ross (Troy) from the transfer portal. Good thing they did because Penn State was just hit with some bad news on Tuesday.

The leading wide receiver on the roster in 2024 was Harrison Wallace, who hauled in 46 receptions for 720 yards and four touchdowns on the season. While Wallace isn’t an overly dynamic athlete, he has gained the trust of Allar. There was a strong possibility that Wallace could have contended to be the top pass catcher on the team again in 2025, but instead, he decided to enter the transfer portal.

Junior speedster Omari Evans also entered the portal on Tuesday. He wasn’t a high volume guy for the Nittany Lions in 2024 (21 receptions) but Evans did the most with those opportunities, averaging a stellar 19.8 yards per reception en route to 415 yards and five touchdowns. Losing that type of speed is no small loss.

Some will argue that this might be some addition by subtraction but losing talent from a room that was already short of it is never a good thing. Penn State will now need to continue to find answers to that wide receiver room. They can’t go into next season allowing it to limit what should be a tremendous unit.