Penn State football looking to push Oregon, Ohio State for portal’s No. 1 safety

The competition is heating up for one of the top defenders currently available in the transfer portal. As the first full week of the winter portal window nears an end, Penn State football is looking to make up ground in an emerging battle for former Purdue safety Dillon Thieneman.

According to reports this week, the sophomore defensive back has already set up visits to Ohio State and Oregon. Penn State football was mentioned as one of the other programs currently in the mix, along with LSU, Texas, and Georgia. Thieneman has yet to report an official offer from the Nittany Lions.

Thieneman burst onto the scene during his first season in West Lafayette in 2023, earning FWAA Defensive Freshman of the Year and Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors with 106 tackles and six interceptions. As a sophomore this fall, he led the Boilermakers with 104 tackles (70 solo) and six pass breakups. He had a team-best eight tackles against the Nittany Lions during November’s 49-10 victory by Penn State.

© Nick King/Lansing State Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

A one-time three-star recruit, Thieneman is now the top safety in the current transfer portal window. He ranks as On’3 No. 3 overall portal prospect and No. 12 based on the site’s Industry Rankings.

On Thursday, standout junior safety KJ Winston announced that he was forgoing his final season with Penn State football to enter the 2025 NFL Draft. The Nittany Lions will lose Jaylen Reed at the end of the year as well. 

“We’re moving, and I’m pushing my staff to be very aggressive,” James Franklin said of the transfer portal on Sunday. “The challenge that I don’t think a lot of people think about is, typically, when your season ends, and you’re in that time getting ready for a bowl game, you have time to sit down with all of your players and find out what’s going on: who’s coming back, who’s considering going into the transfer portal, who is going into the transfer portal. And a lot of those things impact your decision-making on who you’re going to try to go out and get to replace those guys with.

“So it’s hard to come up with a plan. We’ll do that this week. But we’re probably a week behind other programs. I didn’t really want to be having those conversations last week when we were getting ready for Oregon. So, that’s a little bit of a challenge.”

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