{"id":72291,"date":"2025-02-08T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T17:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=72291"},"modified":"2025-11-07T09:22:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T14:22:03","slug":"penn-state-looking-for-tyler-2-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/02\/08\/penn-state-looking-for-tyler-2-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn State Looking for Tyler 2.0"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a very successful 2024 season, Penn State football is at an inflection point.\u00a0 There has been a lot of coverage of players leaving, players staying<\/a>, and the coaching carousel<\/a>.\u00a0 Perhaps the most impact change heading into next season will be replacing star tight end Tyler Warren<\/a>.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, Penn State is looking for Tyler 2.0.<\/p>\n

Penn State Looking for Tyler 2.0<\/h2>\n

Finding such a star will be difficult if not impossible.\u00a0 Head coach James Franklin, offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, and the offensive leaders who did stick around will need to compensate.\u00a0 Jim Knowles recently joined<\/a> the staff as defensive coordinator, and the defense appears to be one of the best in the Big Ten and arguably the nation.\u00a0 However, the determining factor for how far this team goes next season will be the offense’s ability to replace Warren\u2019s production.<\/p>\n

A Look Back at Warren’s Historic Season<\/h3>\n

Warren had an all-time great season in 2024 for Penn State.\u00a0 He earned the Mackey Award presented to college football\u2019s most outstanding tight end.\u00a0 The Mackey Award was a fitting end to a season and career that made Warren a Penn State legend.\u00a0 Warren was also named a first-team All-American, first-team All-Big Ten, and was the Big Ten Tight End of the Year.\u00a0 He caught 104 passes for 1,233 yards and eight touchdowns last season.\u00a0 Warren finished seventh in voting for the Heisman.<\/p>\n

What helped set Warren apart was his versatility.\u00a0 In addition to the strong receiving stats, he did other things on the field that are never expected from a tight end.\u00a0 Warren rushed 26 times, gaining 218 yards with four rushing touchdowns.\u00a0 For good measure, he also completed three of six passes with a touchdown from the quarterback position.\u00a0 Warren had more than double the number of catches of any teammate and was fifth in rushing yards.<\/p>\n

Warren was a security blanket for quarterback Drew Allar<\/a> and the offense.\u00a0 When the going got tough, Warren got going.\u00a0 A career-defining game for him was the win against USC<\/a>.\u00a0 In that contest, Warren caught 17 passes for 224 yards with a touchdown.\u00a0 He also ran once for four yards and completed his only pass attempt for nine yards.\u00a0 Throughout the year, he lined up at quarterback in the Wildcat, running the ball or even throwing it.\u00a0 He made big catches and was a solid blocker.\u00a0 It was easily an all-time season for Warren.<\/p>\n

Penn State Looking for Tyler 2.0: Next Man\/Men Up<\/h3>\n

Warren was the latest in a line of quality tight ends from Penn State.\u00a0 A testament to the quality tutelage of tight ends coach Ty Howle, the last few starting tight ends have continued to \u201cone-up\u201d the prior starter.\u00a0 Recently, Brenton Strange built the foundation for Theo Johnson.\u00a0 Johnson passed the torch to Warren.\u00a0 The bar is now extremely high, and it will be difficult to top, or even get close to, Warren\u2019s production.<\/p>\n

Two players on the roster will have opportunities at tight end.\u00a0 First is Khalil Dinkins<\/a>.\u00a0 Dinkins just completed his redshirt junior season.\u00a0 He caught 14 catches for 122 yards and two touchdowns.\u00a0 That ranked Dinkins eighth on the team in both receptions and receiving yards.\u00a0 In addition to Dinkins, Luke Reynolds<\/a> should get a long look at the position.\u00a0 He just completed his freshman season, catching nine passes for 111 yards and a touchdown.\u00a0 Those stats ranked him just below Dinkins.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to imagine one player replacing all of Warren\u2019s production.\u00a0 Both Dinkins and Reynolds gained valuable experience this season.\u00a0 They were also able to learn from one of the best.\u00a0 They will both take the torch and look to build on the Tight End U<\/a> reputation that Howle has built.<\/p>\n

Penn State Looking for Tyler 2.0: Beyond the Tight Ends<\/h3>\n

In addition to the tight ends, replacing Warren\u2019s production must be a team effort.\u00a0 Penn State boasts one of the strongest running back rooms in the nation, led by Nick Singleton<\/a> and Kaytron Allen<\/a>.\u00a0 In addition to running the ball, they must catch it out of the backfield.\u00a0 Singleton has shown a penchant for this already and was third on the team in 2024 with 41 receptions.\u00a0 He was tied for second on the team with five receiving touchdowns.<\/p>\n

The wide receiver position was the most disappointing group on the team in 2024 and is going through a lot of change<\/a>.\u00a0 Gone are the top-producing receivers, Trey Wallace (transfer to Ole Miss), and Omari Evans (transfer to Washington).\u00a0 Kyron Hudson<\/a> (transfer from USC) and Devonte Ross<\/a> (transfer from Troy) are coming in.\u00a0 If the receivers can extend the field and produce decent numbers, it will take the pressure off the tight ends to catch as many passes.\u00a0 Alternatively, it could divert attention and open up more opportunities for the tight ends to get open.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main image: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a very successful 2024 season, Penn State football is at an inflection point.\u00a0 There has been a lot of coverage of players leaving, players staying, and the coaching carousel.\u00a0 Perhaps the most impact change heading into next season will be replacing star tight end Tyler Warren.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, Penn State is looking for Tyler […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5172,"featured_media":72296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,35610],"tags":[32817,493,3775,837,5653,8764,309,8146,34200,7576],"class_list":["post-72291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-featured","category-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-andy-kotelnicki","tag-awards","tag-brenton-strange","tag-james-franklin","tag-mackey-award","tag-omari-evans","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-theo-johnson","tag-trey-wallace","tag-ty-howle"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72291"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72297,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72291\/revisions\/72297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}