Jan. 17—Sunday turned out to be quite a night for the position that provides arguably the biggest question marks for the 2023 Penn State football team.
Just after 7 p.m. that night, receivers coach Taylor Stubblefield — a member of the Nittany Lions coaching staff since the 2020 season — announced via his Twitter account that his time with the program had "drawn to a close." A bit less than a half hour after Stubblefield's post, Penn State emailed a statement of its own attributed to head coach James Franklin, indicating that Stubblefield's departure might not have been entirely of his own choosing.
"I would like to thank Taylor for his efforts during his time with Penn State but feel it is in our program's best interest to make a change at this time," Franklin said in the statement, which added that a national search for a replacement had begun.
By 8:08 p.m. Kent State's Dante Cephas, who rated among the most coveted receiver prospects in the country after he entered the transfer portal in December, ended his long re-recruitment by committing to Penn State.
So within an hour, Penn State's receivers coach was jettisoned from the program, the head of the program said the decision to make the change was his, and the team's top portal target and need jumped on board.
Interesting timing? Or, something more?
Well, the answer to that might never fully come to light from the program. But one fact became obvious throughout Stubblefield's three seasons: Penn State didn't recruit the receiver position with quite the success it rebuilt everywhere else on offense during that time.
Despite top-20-rated recruiting classes in each of the past three years and a top-10 in 2022, Stubblefield rated as one of the least-effective recruiters in the Big Ten in two of those three seasons. According to 247Sports' recruiter rankings, he bottomed out at No. 80 in the conference in 2021. Penn State otherwise had three assistants rank in the top 15.
Stubblefield shot up to No. 17 in the conference for the 2022 class, but he still rated just fifth on the entire staff. His work on the 2023 recruiting class rated just 73rd in the conference, even though coaches have raved about the potential of two players in that class, speedster Omari Evans and Kaden Saunders, who is the highest-rated player ever to commit to Stubblefield, according to 247.
It's plausible Penn State is looking for a boost on the recruiting trail just as much as they are on the field, after having to dip into the transfer portal to bolster the receiving corps for a second straight season. After transferring in from Western Kentucky, Mitchell Tinsley led the Nittany Lions in receptions and receiving touchdowns in 2022, and it's likely Cephas will be counted on to be as big a part of the unit in 2023.