Penn State receiver Jahan Dotson announced that it will return for the 2021 season. This is after the All-Big Ten selection of the third 5-foot-11 and 182 pound team ended their junior 2020 season in true drop-the-mic style, making many wondered if he would leave the NFL early. He ended that speculation on Twitter on Thursday, saying, “I’ll be back in 2021 to give you the summary … Chapter 4”, referring to his fourth season on the show
In a 56-21 Big Ten Championship Week victory over Illinois at Beaver Stadium on December 19, Dotson had six receptions for a 189-yard career record and two touchdowns. He became the first PSU player to record two receptions of 70 yards or more in the same game, ranging from 75 to 70 yards for tank destroyers. To be sure, he added a punt return for 50 yards.
When the 2020 season started, there were doubts whether Dotson could take on the lead role of pass-catcher in the broad body that KJ Hamler had performed before becoming a second-round pick in the NFL Draft last spring. Dotson did this and more, presenting one of the longest reception seasons in the school’s history, despite being limited to nine games due to the shortened COVID-19 campaign.
Its 884 receiving yards are the 13th most in a season for Lions. However, he received an average of 98.2 yards per exit, which means that in a typical season of 13 games he would have finished over 1,200 yards, which would have been second in the PSU.
Dotson now has 1,575 receiving yards and ranks 17th on Penn State’s career list. It should also be noted that Dotson played in only one of the first six Nittany Lions games as a real freshman in 2018 because the team intended to redshirt. The redshirt was removed when the receiving team struggled, and Dotson ended up starting the last four games of the PSU that year.
Dotson also emerged as one of Penn State’s best punt returns in 2020. His eight returns for 197 yards and an estimated score of 24.63 yards per attempt, which broke Don Jonas’ 1960 school record of 21.4 yards His 22.2-yard career would also be a school record, but he is four laps from the minimum qualifying standard.
A product from Nazareth, Pennsylvania, Dotson committed to UCLA in September 2017. But when Jim Mora was fired as a coach for the Bruins and replaced by Chip Kelly in late November of that year, Dotson changed his mind. He ended up going to Penn State – to the surprise of almost anyone – on the first day of the early hiring period in December.
Slightly built when it arrived on campus 2018, Dotson was cast as a redshirt. As noted, he played only one of the first six Nittany Lions games – a home defeat in Kent. But when the unnamed Hamler wide receivers fought consistently, the team pulled on Dotson’s red shirt at Week 7 in Indiana. He ended the year with 13 receptions for 203 yards.
In 2019, he was a complementary target for Hamler and tight end Pat Freiermuth. Dotson finished third on the team, with 27 receptions for 488 yards and five touchdowns.
Unfortunately for Dotson, he was clearly a victim of Penn State’s bad game in general and the quarterback in particular at the beginning of the 2020 season. In a week 2 game against the state of Ohio, Dotson set fire to the Buckeyes and the future Big Ten. Defensive of the Year Shaun Wade to the sound of eight receptions for 144 yards and three touchdowns.
But the Lions lost 38-25, as part of their five-game losing streak at the start of the season. He, in turn, was forgotten. Dotson ended up with the most yards received in the Big Ten (884), which was almost 200 more than the next closest competitor. His 17.0 yards per catch was third best among the top 10 receivers in the league. Even so, he received only notification from the Big Ten from the third team of coaches and the media.