Koby Howard didn’t want to experience another season like 2025.
From a team standpoint, his true freshman season was supposed to be spectacular, perhaps even ending in a national championship.
It ended up being spectacular, but not for the right reasons.
Penn State went 6-6, and James Franklin, the head coach who recruited Howard to Penn State, was fired six games in.
Even worse for Howard was that he wasn’t given the chance to do much about it. On the practice field, Howard established himself as a guy to watch, and his 5-foot-11, 203-pound build and explosiveness were hard to ignore. But for reasons that we still just don’t understand, Howard only appeared in two of Penn State’s first six games.
Things got better under interim coach Terry Smith, and Howard averaged 31 snaps over the team’s last six games.
But at the end of the year, Howard’s stats amounted to 133 yards and no touchdowns on seven catches.
It took just one game this season for Howard to eclipse two of those totals.
In Penn State’s 45-0 season-opening win over Marshall Saturday, Howard exploded for 161 yards and a touchdown on six catches, finally showing the college football world what he could do.
Matt Campbell Era Begins With 45-0 Penn State Rout of Marshall
To get a different result this year, Howard knew he’d have to prepare differently over the offseason, and that meant making himself a morning person.
“You got to see today,” coach Matt Campbell told reporters afterward, “but I get to see, man, it’s 5:15 in the morning, and the first guy in the facility catching (on the JUGS machine) is Koby Howard. And that’s been that way since spring ball. That’s been that way almost every day in the summer, and that hasn’t wavered as we’ve gotten into the start of the season.”
Howard doesn’t like everything about getting to the facility so early.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.For one, Penn State’s strength coaches are there blasting hard rock music.
But if honing your craft means listening to Led Zeppelin, so be it.
“It gets annoying sometimes,” Howard said, “but you know, I just deal with it. I just go out there, get on the toes, just get ready for practice.”
Penn State started practice in the late afternoon during Howard’s first season, but became a morning practice team under Campbell.
So to get his work in before practice, Howard had to get used to being an early riser.
But the dedication has been there throughout Howard’s time at Penn State.
“He works so hard,” former Penn State receiver Kyron Hudson said last August. “He’s a kid, a freshman, late night, he’s out here working by himself. I think as a freshman, you don’t see that a lot, and he truly pushes himself, and he’s super comfortable. He loves his game. He goes out there and just makes the plays, and I think that’s what makes him be him.”
So we’ve established that Howard has the physical tools and work ethic to be a star in the Big Ten.
But for veteran receiver Brett Eskildsen, something else stood out before anything else when he first got to know Howard.
“I think it was just like when we first started conversing,” Eskildsen told reporters Saturday. “Koby’s a little quieter guy. And so, you know, I was kind of just trying to break him in, you know, pick his brain, and just the way he talks about ball and how serious he is, but how intelligent he is. That’s when I was kind of like, okay, like this kid, this is a young pup going into his true sophomore year, and you know, he’s talking to me about football like this, and you know, how he sees us working together. So I think I would say that right there.”
Howard won’t go off for 161 yards every game.
But he knows that, if he doesn’t let the early success get to him, he can be better than most at his craft.
“You know, not just to not get big-headed about the game that I just had,” Howard said, “just to keep working, keep my head down, and just keep proving that you know I could be one of the best receivers in the country.”
