James Franklin pushes back on NIL rumors surrounding top transfer Trebor Pena

Penn State football was widely viewed as one of the winners of the spring transfer portal window, primarily for the addition of Syracuse wide receiver Trebor Pena. A recipient of second-team All-ACC honors last fall, the Ocean Township, New Jersey, native was one of the most coveted prospects in the country.

But Pena’s recruitment was also among the most high profile this spring, largely due to the reported influence of NIL on his decision to leave the Orange. The controversy was sparked following Syracuse coach Fran Brown’s comments regarding Pena’s departure.

“With all due respect to everybody in the country, to every wide receiver, to everybody that’s doing all this stuff — if you want to make $2 million at wide receiver, that’s the little homie over at Ohio State [Jeremiah Smith],” he said. “Ain’t nobody else making that money. I ain’t giving no wide receiver no $2 million, man, in college.”

But now nearly a month since Pena arrived on campus, James Franklin is rebuking the claims that NIL was a major factor in the standout receiver’s commitment to the Nittany Lions.

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“We got a chance to get to know him, his mom, who was awesome, and his girlfriend, and they just seemed like great fits here at Penn State,” Franklin said on Thursday. “Also [he’s] from the footprint, which helps. Not the end all, be all. But that helps.

“And then I’m also glad, because a lot of the stuff that was put out publicly, none of it was true, you know, about how his transfer took place and why it took place, and a lot of the financial descriptions of how that played out. None of those things were true as it relates to Penn State, at least based on our experience. They were non-factors.”

Pena was the No. 2 available wide receiver in the portal this spring. After leading the ACC in receptions in 2024, the sixth-year senior will look to bolster the Penn State passing attack this season.

“So it just worked out really well. And then, since him being here, our veteran players like him,” Franklin continued. “[Kyron] Hudson has come here and has really been a good fit, and the guys really like him. I think it’s also very interesting, right? A lot of the guys that we got [from the portal] were captains. Hudson was a captain, Pena was a captain, at their previous schools. I think that’s very telling, right, of how they viewed them, teammates and coaches.

“So that’s been really good. And I guess I probably shouldn’t have said none of those things [financial factors] were true. They weren’t true based on our experience and what we dealt with in terms of what his deciding factors about coming to Penn State were.”

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