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Which Penn State players are preseason candidates for the Outland and Nagurski Trophies?

Greg Pickelby: Greg Pickel07/29/25GregPickel
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Defensive tackle Zane Durant. (Credit: Steve Manuel | Blue White Illustrated)

College football’s award watch list season kicked off on Monday with a look at players who could win the sport’s Player of the Year honor, the Maxwell Award. The list, which included Drew Allar, Nick Singleton, and Kaytron Allen, featured 80 players in full, all of whom are either quarterbacks, running backs, or wide receivers. On Tuesday, the focus shifted to the trenches and the defense. Preseason candidates for the Outland Trophy, which goes to the nation’s top interior lineman, and the Nagurski Trophy, which goes to the sport’s best defender, are out. And, the Nittany Lions are represented on both lists.

Starting up front, Penn State guard Vega Ioane and defensive tackle Zane Durant are two of the 50 players in the early running to win the Outland. Mike Reid is the only Lion to ever win the honor. He did so in 1969. Ioane is coming off a unanimous second-team All-Big Ten season in 2024 and is drawing preseason All-American recognition. Durant, who is drawing similar attention nationally, was a unanimous All-Big Ten honorable mention pick last December.

“Zane is the best I’ve played against,” Penn State center Nick Dawkins said last week. “He’s the best d-tackle I’ve played against. I’ve got some impressions about him. He’s the best d-tackle I ever played against, and it’s no shade to any other defensive lineman I’ve played against. It’s the twitch, it’s the lateral movement. It’s the combination and recovery of being able to have a counter movement. He has a counter to power and can go power-to-speed.”

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On Ioane, Dawkins added:

“He has a violent punch and I think he’s just starting to feel things out, you know, especially the end of season, when the offensive line really, really started to click really good. You know, we were calling out blitzes and stunts before they happen. And I think that just comes with experience and where we’re at now. We have a very experienced offensive line and Vega is a huge piece of it.”

Moving to the defense, cornerback AJ Harris is on the Nagurski Trophy preseason watch list along with Durant. Harris enters his second season in State College. In 2024, he started 15 of 16 games for the Lions and was a unanimous All-Big Ten third-team choice.

A Penn State player has never won the Nagurski Trophy, which has been given out annually since 1993.

Which Lions have made preseason watch lists so far?

Here’s the list as of July 29:

Drew Allar – Maxwell Award

Kaytron Allen – Maxwell Award

Zane Durant – Outland Trophy, Bronco Nagurski Trophy

A.J. Harris – Lott IMPACT Trophy, Bronco Nagurski Trophy

Vega Ioane – Outland Trophy

Nicholas Singleton – Maxwell Award


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