18 Days Until Penn State’s ‘Amazing’ No. 18 Hits the Field. Will Ben Brahmer Be the Nittany Lions’ Next Star Tight End?

It’s 18 days until No.18 Penn State opens its 139th season of college football under its 17th head coach, Matt Campbell.

After quarterback Rocco Becht, one of the Nittany Lions’ biggest stars on offense — literally as well as figuratively — will be another No. 18, tight end Ben Brahmer.

At 6-foot-7, the 250-pound Brahmer is tied for being the tallest player on the Penn State roster. And, across all tight ends in the country, he stands among the best. For example, here are some of his accolades, past and present:

• Second-team All-Big 12 (2025)
• 6th-most TD receptions, FBS tight ends (2025)
• No. 1 tight end transfer (2026/247Sports)
• Third-team All-American (2026/Phil Steele)
• 7th-rated tight end (2026/247Sports)
• Lombardi Award Watch List (2026)

In three seasons at Iowa State, Brahmer had 75 receptions for 977 yards, with nine touchdowns. He’s one of Becht’s favorite targets, especially in key moments. Brahmer has nine career TD catches, and in those games Iowa State was 8-1.

Brahmer had a touchdown every 6.2 receptions for Iowa State. It’s a trend he started in high school, while starring for Pierce High in Nebraska, where he was coached by his father, Mack. He had 197 receptions for Pierce, and 45 were for TDs — a touchdown every 4.4 receptions. Brahmer was the big gun for Pierce. Despite a senior class of about 60 students, with Brahmer in the lineup Pierce made it to four consecutive state title games, winning two.

Pierce, a small town of about 1,800 people, is a four-hour drive to Ames, Iowa. A straight shot east, mostly on Route 20. The drive to State College is almost three times that. But Brahmer never hesitated in making the decision to finish his college career at Penn State.

A senior transfer from Iowa State, Brahmer followed his head coach, quarterback and offensive coordinator and position coach Taylor Mouser to Happy Valley. “I trusted Coach Campbell and Mouse,” Brahmer said. “Once I knew they were coming here to Penn State, I made the decision in a snap of the fingers.”

“AMAZING” = BRAHMER: It took the same amount of time for Brahmer’s longtime teammate, fellow tight end Gabe Burkle, to come up with the adjective when I asked him on Monday to describe Brahmer in word. 

“Amazing.” Burkle said it three times. Burkle should know. He spent three seasons in the tight end room at Iowa State with Brahmer, before joining him at Penn State.

“You know, he can do it all. Just so talented,” said Burkle, not a small guy himself, at 6-6 and 247. “He’s such a true workhorse, He’s always working at his game. He’s been amazing to me. He’s been amazing to play with. Super-fun to be around. Obviously, great friends with him and things like that. We’ve gotten so close, and we’ve kind of gone through a lot together. So, yeah, he’s amazing.”

The catch with Brahmer isn’t just that he’s an excellent receiver and a Becht favorite. It’s that the tight end is most excited about the progress he’s made without the football.

“I’ve been focusing a lot on blocking, run blocking and perimeter blocking,” Brahmer said this week. “If I can get into that mentality that I can do that, I think I’m going to be in a good spot. I had a good spring of blocking, and it’s been really good this fall too. So I’m excited to, you know, keep that mentality and run off the ball.”

Brahmer also said he’s gotten faster. Last year, his top speed reached was about 20 mph, and this summer he hit 21.1 mph. (For comparison…an apt one, I think…the peak speed for a brown bear is 21.7 mph.)

PSU TE >>> NFL: Brahmer also knows that you can’t be a big tight who can catch the ball at Penn State without knowing the legacy of top-notch Nittany Lion tight ends. Currently, six former Nittany Lions are playing the position in the NFL: Tyler Warren (Indianapolis), Pat Freiermuth (Pittsburgh), Mike Gesicki (Cincinnati), Brenton Strange (Jacksonville), Theo Johnson (New York Giants) and Juwan Johnson (New Orleans)

And preceding them were such legends as Kyle Brady, Ted Kwalkick and Mickey Shuler. Then there’s Jesse James, who also wore No. 18 and at 6-7 and 254 pounds while at Penn State, was almost identical in size to Brahmer. (FWIW: Warren was 6-6 and 261 at PSU.)

“Yeah, I know there’s a lot of them,” Brahmer said. “The legacy of tight ends here, it’s awesome. To know that you kind of have to hold that up, it’s a lot of weight on your shoulders. I’m ready for it. I think it’s going to be awesome to hold that weight.”

Brahmer met Freiermuth when the Steelers tight end came to campus in the spring. The two of them hit it off.

“He’s a good guy,” Brahmer said. “Pat was actually in our tight end meeting room and he gave us some tips as a room — about run game blocking and pass game stuff. He’s been playing football for a long time, and he knows more than we do.

“I got his number. He told me to reach out whenever I need something. I texted him, just kind of told him, ‘Thank you for coming up to me and just shaking my hand.’ ’’