{"id":391172,"date":"2026-01-06T13:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T13:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/391172\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T13:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T13:43:09","slug":"penn-state-picks-up-transfer-portal-commitment-from-former-ucla-defensive-tackle-keanu-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/391172\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn State picks up transfer portal commitment from former UCLA defensive tackle Keanu Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penn State has picked up a big transfer portal commitment on the defensive line. Former UCLA defensive tackle Keanu Williams<\/a> committed to the Nittany Lions on Monday night following a visit with head coach Matt Campbell<\/a> and his staff.<\/p>\n

Williams started 11 of 12 games for UCLA in 2025 and had the best season of his collegiate career with 39 tackles after returning from a knee injury that cost him almost the entirety of the 2024 campaign. Williams is set to have one year of eligibility remaining at Penn State. The 6-foot-5, 320-pound defensive tackle started his college career at Oregon before transferring to UCLA, where he spent the last three seasons.<\/p>\n

Williams played under new Penn State defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n

Williams is the second defensive tackle to commit to Penn State in the transfer portal, joining former Iowa State<\/a> redshirt freshman Alijah Carnell<\/a>. He is Penn State’s 20th transfer portal commitment in total and first non-Iowa State transfer since the portal officially opened for business Friday.<\/p>\n

Penn State has been active throughout transfer portal season and Williams is the latest important addition for Campbell<\/a> and company.<\/p>\n

“Transfer portal has become a unique advantage probably in some ways and sometimes can be a disadvantage,” Campbell said during his introductory press conference. If you look at our history the last couple years, Jayden Higgins<\/a>\u00a0was maybe the 40th ranked transfer portal guy and Jayden Higgins was the No. 1 receiver taken in the draft last year. At\u00a0offensive tackle, Jalen Travis<\/a>, who was drafted by the Colts, No. 40 in the transfer portal was the first transfer portal offensive tackle\u00a0(drafted).<\/p>\n

“We have a process. We know what we’re looking for in the transfer portal and have to use that to continue to supplement our football team. Nobody will be better at developing our student-athletes and our high school football players better than us.”<\/p>\n

RELATED: Penn State football transfer portal tracker<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penn State has picked up a big transfer portal commitment on the defensive line. Former UCLA defensive tackle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-391172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}