With 2:01 left to go in the fourth quarter, Penn State trailing Minnesota 31-26, Jahan Dotson catches a pass from Sean Clifford in stride over the middle of the field.
For the next five seconds Dotson runs as fast as he can, but it’s not fast enough. He’s caught from behind and Penn State eventually loses its first game of the year.
Of course as if often the case in both victory and defeat, the result wasn’t on just a single player. Two different refereeing decisions and mistakes all afternoon would ultimately cost the Nittany Lions the game. It wasn’t just Dotson, but that doesn’t mean Penn State’s senior wideout has ever forgotten that moment some two years later.
“That was something that I was really focused on getting better at going into my last year here,” Dotson said of his own speed. “What really pushed me, to be honest, was the guys on the team. I remember when [receiver] KJ [Hamler] was here. He never let live me down the Minnesota moment. So literally getting faster, being faster, that was always something I was trying to prove to everyone.”
Of course Dotson has already proved his worth to Penn State with or without the speed. In 2020 he was one of the team’s lone bright spots making 52 catches a mark that only 13 other Penn State receivers have bettered in a single-season, all while doing it in just nine games.
Dotson now sits No. 17 all-time on Penn State’s career receiving yardage list just 425 yards from becoming one of just 10 Penn State wideouts to crack the 2000 yard mark in their careers. The Pennsylvania native has always been shifty, and perhaps faster than he looks, but he has never been blazing fast. And he wants that to change.
“I knew I had it in me,” Dotson added after telling reporters on Tuesday that he has posted his best 40-yard dash time ever this summer. “I always knew I was that fast, so it’s kind of just always the way I’ve been playing. My dad ever since I was a young kid, he told me, ‘You’ve got tremendous speed, so use it to your ability.’ I feel like this camp I’ve really been focusing on just playing with speed all the time, just controlling my speed and then knowing when to use it and when not to use it.”
Dotson is nine pound heavier than he was in 2019, and two pounds heavier than he was in 2020. Listed at 184, it remains to be seen what Dotson’s playing weight actually ends up being, but by all accounts Dotson is – whatever the number is on the scale – bigger, faster and stronger.
For a Penn State team that doesn’t lack talent, but doesn’t have game changing speed, Dotson turning into an even faster version of himself is great news for the Nittany Lions as a season-opening meeting with Wisconsin in Madison looms this coming Saturday.
“He’s gotten bigger and stronger and more explosive,” Coach James Franklin said on Tuesday. “He’s always been silky smooth and fluid, kind of with his movements all the way back to high school. He’s the guy that, whether it’s football practice at Penn State, whether it’s basketball in high school, whether it’s track, he’s just that guy that has tremendous body control and made everything look easy. Sometimes you don’t think he’s running very fast because he’s just so fluid and the way he does it, but no one catches them. You know he’s, he’s subtle kind of with his moves. But now he’s more explosive.”
That could go a long way for Penn State in 2021, a team that had just nine passing plays of over 30 yards in 2020, a mark that came in at 79th in the nation.
