Penn State Football Loses Breakout Star to Long-Term Injury: Who Steps Up in 2025?
Redshirt freshman Max Granville was one of the players on Penn State Football’s 2025 roster that I was most excited to see this fall.
The former four-star defensive end from Sugar Land, Texas reclassified into the 2024 class and enrolled a full year early at Penn State ahead of last season.
While keeping his redshirt intact in 2024, Granville played in three regular-season games and all four postseason games for the Nittany Lions. Granville recorded only one tackle and one quarterback hit last season, but he certainly looked the part of a future star defensive end at both practice and in limited in-game snaps.
On Thursday, however, Penn State head coach James Franklin announced that Granville sustained a “long-term” injury while working out at home on a school break, putting his potential rise to stardom for Penn State on hold.
How Penn State Football Will Look to Replace Max Granville
While Granville was only a rising redshirt freshman this fall with limited experience under his belt, he was still in line to compete for a starting position opposite Dani Dennis-Sutton and participate in the two-deep rotation this fall for the Nittany Lions.
Now, with Granville sidelined, the Nittany Lions will need to lean more heavily on key veterans and need a few younger players to accelerate their development ahead of a highly anticipated 2025 campaign.
Key Veterans
On one hand, Granville’s injury puts more pressure on Zuriah Fisher heading into 2025.
Fisher missed the 2024 season with an injury, but is now fully healthy and back up to speed. During his most recent healthy season in 2023, Fisher appeared in all 13 games for the Nittany Lions on defense and special teams, recording 17 tackles, 3.5 sacks, and a fumble recovery. If Fisher can stay fully healthy this fall, the Nittany Lions will lean on him more heavily with a shorter rotation until younger players get up to speed.
Young Players to Step Up
While Max Granville was the most well-known youngster in the defensive end room heading into next season, there are plenty of other young players with high potential.
Fellow redshirt freshman Jaylen Harvey also flashed at times last season. Harvey earned the Penn State staff’s developmental squad defensive player of the week honors against Kent State and recorded one tackle for a loss and one solo tackle in five game appearances in 2024.
Former Wisconsin transfer redshirt sophomore Jordan Mayer primarily played on special teams in 2024, but appeared in 15 games for the Nittany Lions, recording 1.5 sacks on the season.
Penn State also has redshirt sophomore Mason Robinson and redshirt Freshman Mylachi Williams in the room, however, neither has game experience for the Nittany Lions.
Of the true freshmen, one name to keep an eye on is Yvan Kemajou. Kemajou enrolled early for the Nittany Lions in January and caught the coaching staff’s eye this spring. Fellow true freshman Chaz Coleman did not enroll early, but may have the highest potential of any defensive end in the 2025 class.
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Wild Cards
This offseason, Penn State did pick up a transfer portal defensive end, former Pennsylvania standout recruit Enai White.
However, White has not caught on so far at the collegiate level, suffering from a few injuries that derailed his playing time at Texas A&M. If White is able to get healthy and find his footing, there will be a path to playing time this fall for the redshirt junior.
The second wild card on this list is true freshman Daniel Jennings.
Like Granville, Jennings reclassified to enroll a year early at Penn State. Without the benefit of spring and during a year he is supposed to still be in high school, however, how much we should expect to see of Jennings, if at all, remains to be seen.
Any way you look at it, Max Granville’s injury is a major blow to Penn State in 2025. With him focused on recovery for the foreseeable future, the Nittany Lions will need to look elsewhere for playmakers to step up if the Nittany Lions if the Nittany Lions hope to push toward a national title campaign this fall.
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