With Nick Singleton not on the field for most of the second half, true freshman Corey Smith (24) got his first carries of his career, breaking off a 78-yard run in the final minutes.
Barry Reeger | AP photo
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STATE COLLEGE — Almost nothing went wrong for Penn State in Saturday night’s rout of Washington.
There’s always a “but.”
Nick Singleton showed arguably his best burst of the season when he took the second-half kickoff 97 yards down the right sideline to the end zone.
The touchdown was wiped out on a holding penalty against Liam Clifford. Singleton only touched the ball one more time on the night and was not on the sideline during the fourth quarter while dealing with an apparent injury.
“As you guys know, I don’t get into those types of things,” Nittany Lions coach James Franklin said. “You’ll find out when you go out to practice. I don’t have a whole lot more.
“Typically, I get in (to the locker room) after this (and) shower. Everybody’s gone. (Head trainer) Andy Mutnan is waiting for me. He goes through how we got out of the game, and what the injuries were. Typically we don’t have a whole lot of information until the next morning. But as you can imagine, I don’t usually get into sharing that information with you guys anyway at this stage.”
It’s unclear if Singleton was hurt on the return. Penn State turned the ball over on the next play and, after a Washington field goal, Singleton was not back deep for the next kickoff.
He did, however, come out with the offense after that, taking a handoff 9 yards for his last action of the night.
With Penn State up big in the second half, Singleton’s absence went relatively unnoticed until midway through the fourth quarter when fellow running back Kaytron Allen needed a breather.
True freshman Corey Smith checked into the game and took his first career carry for 8 yards to make it first-and-goal. Allen scored two plays later.
After a strong start to the season, Penn State’s running game hasn’t been quite the same since Singleton got banged up late in the Illinois game at the end of September.
Singleton came out of September with 408 yards and three touchdowns on the ground. After sitting out against UCLA, he finished his next three games with 26, 49 and 15 rushing yards before getting 45 on seven carries against the Huskies.
Penn State has managed to offset that decline in production a bit by using Singleton as a receiver — he has 16 catches for 144 yards and two scores in the last four games — but the offense as a whole has been diminished without having him as a home run threat on handoffs.
Ironically, Penn State actually ripped off its longest run of the season after Singleton exited on Saturday.
Right after Washington’s last threat ended on a fourth-down stop by the Lions, Smith took his second career carry 78 yards down that same sideline that Singleton raced past — just going the other direction.
The Huskies finally hunted him down short of the end zone, but it was a promising sign for the rookie from Wisconsin, who started the season as the No. 5 running back. Third-stringer Cam Wallace was lost for the season with an injury in September and fellow freshman Quinton Martin has also been out in recent weeks.
“Corey’s one of the most impressive young guys I’ve seen,” quarterback Drew Allar said. “We don’t really gotten to see him on Saturdays just because of the backfield we already have in front of him. But Corey and (Martin) have a lot of twitch to them. A lot of natural ability overall. In practice, Corey makes a lot of guys miss. The first guy’s usually not tackling him.
“… I think the biggest thing I’ve seen from Corey is the last three or four weeks he’s been practicing at a very high level. I think that’s him getting used to college, getting used to our playbook. He’s got a bright future ahead of him.”
BEAMON MOVES ON
Defensive tackle Hakeem Beamon opted to return to Penn State for the sixth season afforded to him by the pandemic. He won’t be finishing it.
The veteran reserve is no longer with the team, having left during the week leading up to the Washington game.
Part of Penn State’s two-deep rotation at tackle, Beamon had seen his snap decrease as the season went along. The Lions have started Zane Durant and Dvon J-Thomas with Beamon, Coziah Izzard and Alonzo Ford all seeing regular action behind them.
In recent weeks Ford has moved up in rep count, highlighted by a strong performance in the second half against Wisconsin.
Beamon played in all eight games to start the season but hadn’t recorded a stat of any kind since a tackle for loss against Illinois back in September.
ANOTHER COMMITMENT
Penn State came away with a new recruit before last week’s game, landing a pledge from a junior in Matt Sieg.
This Saturday brought another pregame recruiting win — this time from the sophomore class.
Delaware offensive lineman Layton von Brandt gave a verbal commitment to the Lions, giving them one of the nation’s top prospects in the very early rankings for the 2027 cycle.
Checking in at 6-foot-5, 255 pounds as a sophomore, von Brandt is rated among the top 65 recruits in the country at any position for 2027. Both On3 and 247Sports have given him a four-star rating as the No. 4 interior lineman in his class and the No. 1 recruit in Delaware.
Penn State was already well familiar with von Brandt, having already secured a pledge from his teammate at Appoquinimink High School, junior wide receiver Jahsiear Rogers.
Rogers publicly committed to Penn State in late July and is rated the top prospect in Delaware for 2026.
Penn State has 25 players committed for the upcoming 2025 class, which can officially sign on Dec. 4. The Lions have seven players in the fold for 2026 after landing Sieg and von Brandt is the second 2027 recruit, joining Pittsburgh-area running back Kemon Spell — the early No. 1 sophomore prospect in Pennsylvania.
UP NEXT
Penn State’s push toward the College Football Playoff continues with a road trip to Purdue. The Lions and Boilermakers will kick off at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Ross-Ade Stadium with CBS carrying the broadcast.
Purdue is firmly in the Big Ten basement in this first year of an 18-team mega-conference. The Boilers are 1-8 overall and 0-6 in conference play following a 45-0 shellacking by Ohio State on Saturday.
Under second-year coach Ryan Walters Purdue has yet to beat an FBS team this season. After blanking FCS Indiana State 49-0 in the season-opener, the Boilers have dropped eight straight by a combined score of 340-113. They did manage to push two of those games to overtime before losing 50-49 to Illinois and 26-20 to Northwestern.