Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1420595
3 2 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M tire team. He can move people around." Johnson, meanwhile, grew up playing tight end, but not at an American high school. The former four-star prospect hails from Windsor, Ontario, and grew up playing the Canadian game, where the rules favor the passing attack. Tak- ing advantage of the larger field, he won all-city honors following his junior and senior seasons at Holy Names High and was Rivals.com's No. 4 tight end in the class of 2020. Warren had a more conventional foot- ball upbringing, having grown up in east- ern Virginia, just outside of Richmond. But his path to Penn State's tight ends room might have been the most unusual of all. At Atlee, he was something of an accidental quarterback. At least that's how it started. He had played the position in middle school, and when the varsity team needed someone to take the job, he volunteered. It wasn't as if he had a burn- ing passion to play quarterback. "It was just something that I knew I could do," he said, "so that's what I did." He did it well enough to top 700 pass- ing yards each of his four varsity seasons and twice win all-state honors. But he had experienced a growth spurt in high school and stood 6-foot-6 when college coaches began paying attention to him. They liked his athleticism, and they in- creasingly came to see him as a tight end at their level. Penn State's James Franklin was one of those coaches. Fortunately for the Nittany Lions, Warren was more than willing to explore that possibility. "I wasn't a guy who was like, I'm a quarterback, I have to play quarterback [in college]," he said. "In high school, when I started playing quarterback, it was because we didn't really have one. We needed one, and I knew I could throw, so it went from there. "When Penn State's coaching staff reached out, I really connected with them, I really thought it was a special place. So [committing to Penn State] wasn't only about playing the tight end position. Just coming to this school in general was a big part of what I wanted to do." Last season, with Strange promoted to the starting lineup after Pat Freiermuth's season-ending injury and Johnson seeing action in seven games, Warren sat out, playing in two games but spending the year mostly behind the scenes as he tran- sitioned to his new position. But while he saw action on only a handful of plays, he was making an impression behind the scenes. Program insiders frequently men- tioned the former Rivals.com three-star prospect as someone who was going to surprise people in the years to come. A year later, he has surprised some people, beginning with Auburn's defen- sive coaching staff and continuing with Redshirt sophomore Brenton Strange has been the Nittany Lions' starting tight end since the middle of the 2020 season when he was promoted following Pat Freiermuth's season- ending shoulder injury. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL