Penn State’s Jahan Dotson maintains his quiet composure, despite his success this season
Jahan Dotson fielded the punt at the 19-yard line and ran to his left, immediately making one defender badly miss. Then another. And another.
Eventually, the Penn State junior receiver crossed midfield with no one in arm’s length of him. The 5-foot-11, 182-pound Nazareth native ran into the end zone for an 81-yard touchdown return, giving the Nittany Lions their final points early in the fourth quarter of last Saturday’s 39-24 win over Michigan State.
But he didn’t stop running — he sprinted to the sideline and jumped up into his teammates in celebration. Players carried him around on their shoulders down the sideline, as head coach James Franklin threw his arm around his team’s most explosive offensive weapon.
Jahan leads Penn State — and the Big Ten — in receiving yards with 695 through eight games. But he rarely has displays of emotion like the one he had last week. Instead, he prefers not to get too high or too low — that’s just who Jahan is. It’s that consistency in his mental approach that’s allowed him to blossom into a star this season for the Nittany Lions.
“That was the most excitement we’ve seen from him,” said Robin Dotson, Jahan’s mother.
“We were like, ‘Woah,’” added his father, Al Dotson, with a chuckle.
After being the Nittany Lions’ third receiving option last year, with 488 receiving yards through 13 games, Jahan has become a name to know in college football this season. He’s posted four 100-yard receiving games and has had several highlight-reel catches.
Though Al said he saw this breakout coming for his son — and he hoped and prayed for it, he added — it was this past summer when Jahan put the work in to make the strides he has on the field. During Penn State’s pandemic-inflicted extended offseason, Al set up equipment in the basement of the family’s Nazareth home, where Jahan worked out for the almost three months he was back in his hometown.
When players first returned to campus in early June, Franklin could see the difference in Jahan’s body.
“This summer, for the first time ever, I remember walking in the weight room, and I was like, ‘Wow,’” Franklin said Tuesday. “I went up to him, and he had bumps on his arms and his shoulders — like muscles. He looked really good. That hasn’t always come easy to him, because he was a fairly slight guy coming in.”
That physical transformation has helped Jahan become more explosive, which he’s demonstrated with a handful of one-handed grabs over defensive backs this season.
Still, no matter how much of a surprise Jahan’s sudden emergence has been to those on the outside, his teammates aren’t shocked at all.
“The stuff he does in the game is pretty sick and cool, but it’s really no surprise because we’ve all known what Jahan Dotson was capable of,” redshirt sophomore offensive lineman Rasheed Walker said. “That’s just the first time you guys have seen him do it.”
Even though Jahan’s had quite a year individually, the Nittany Lions struggled heavily at times — the team opened the season with a program-worst 0-5 start before winning its last three games.
That’s why Jahan has found more lessons than reasons to celebrate when reflecting on Penn State’s 2020 campaign so far.
“We’ve gotta be consistent, that’s the biggest thing,” Dotson said after the Nittany Lions win over the Spartans. “I had a couple games where I dropped off, didn’t really do much, and we had a couple games as a team where we dropped off and it resulted in losses. So, just being consistent every single day, every single weekend on Saturday — just making sure we get our job done, that’s huge.”
With his new role as Penn State’s No. 1 receiver, Jahan has “been more vocal” this season, Franklin said. The seventh-year head coach mentioned that he sees Jahan’s confidence continue to grow every day.
Following his team’s win against Michigan State last Saturday, Jahan said that his teammates often tease him, telling him he isn’t that fast. So, he said he used that as fuel for his punt-return touchdown.
“My teammates always joke around with me saying that I’m not fast or it doesn’t look like I’m really running,” Dotson said. “So on that punt return, I had to show them a little bit that I got a little kick in me, a little speed in me.”
In his usual fashion, he preferred to let his actions do the talking.
No matter what heights he continues to reach or how much his star continues to grow, that’s who Jahan is. And it’s who he’ll always be.
“That’s one thing about him,” Al said, “he’s a man of very few words.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 8:15 AM.
