Penn State receiver Koby Howard has a ‘conviction to be great’ — and it’s showing
The sophomore receiver has 344 receiving yards and three total touchdowns so far this season. He’s on pace to break the Nittany Lions’ single-season receiving yards record.
Every morning, Koby Howard’s alarm goes off at 4:45 a.m. By 5:30 a.m., the sophomore wide receiver is at Penn State’s facility catching balls off of the JUGS machine.
Howard follows that up with a workout, breakfast, and then practice. It’s been the same routine each day since the spring.
And those early mornings of putting in extra work seem to be paying off for Howard, who continued his great start of the 2026 season with 135 total yards and two touchdowns in Penn State’s 55-13 win over Buffalo.
“None of it surprises me because of how I’ve watched him,” said head coach Matt Campbell after Saturday’s game at Beaver Stadium. “He’ll be the first guy [Sunday] morning in the facility and probably beat three-fourths of the coaching staff, and he’s catching the JUGS, and he’s that kind of football player that has this conviction to be great.”
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Howard has 344 receiving yards and three total touchdowns through three games this season. He’s averaging 28.67 yards per catch and is on pace to break the Nittany Lions’ single-season receiving yards record, currently held by Allen Robinson, who had 1,432 yards in 2013.
And all of this success is coming in just his second season as a collegiate wide receiver.
Howard played in nine games last season, but only had 133 receiving yards across those appearances. He received praise from his teammates and coaches throughout the 2025 offseason, but still barely saw the field under James Franklin, even when things had gone sour for Penn State’s season.
“We’re in a position right now where we don’t have plays and drives to just throw somebody out there and see how it goes,” Franklin said last October when asked about Howard. “We got to get our best guys on the field. Every rep is like gold, every drive is like gold, and we got to maximize that.”
Howard pushed himself this past offseason after the “learning moment” that was last season.
“I feel like God put me through that to learn patience,” Howard said. “Everything isn’t going to go the way I planned, or I’m not going to get the ball all the time.”
Part of the reason for Howard’s success this year is the relationship he developed with his quarterback. He and Rocco Becht went to California in this offseason to train and build chemistry. They also asked Campbell to share a room during fall camp to continue learning more about each other.
So when Howard was lined up in the slot with less than three minutes remaining in the first half on Saturday, both Becht and Howard knew where the ball was going. The result was a 70-yard touchdown to put the Nittany Lions up 34-3.
“I knew the ball was coming to me,” Howard said. “They ran like a Cover 2 look, and me and Rocco just got on the same page with it. We were able to connect on it.”
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Howard’s other touchdown of the day came when he was lined up at running back. Running back Carson Hansen took the snap, handed it off to Becht as he dished it to Howard, who ran 20 yards for the score.
The sophomore wide receiver said he played running back during his little league days and didn’t think the coaching staff knew he could line up there until they tried it out.
Howard’s glad he stayed at Penn State despite the coaching change, and his worth ethic is paying off.
“If you put your mind to it and you work for it, you can do anything that you want to do,” Howard said. “I feel like that’s something that I’ve been trying to prove this year, trying to prove that I’m an explosive receiver.”
