Fran Brown Blasts Trebor Pena Transfer Decision

Fran Brown Blasts Trebor Pena Transfer Decision

Head coaches in college football have every right to blow a gasket over the lack of leadership by the sport in terms of the transfer portal and NIL. Because of that, some players have gone into pure delusion. Trebor Pena has now entered the chat, and his now former head coach, Fran Brown, isn’t exactly thrilled by what went down.

Pena posted a career high 84 receptions for 941 yards and nine touchdowns as a redshirt senior in 2024. Before entering the portal, he asked for more money, and Brown totally blasted him in the media for asking for an outrageous amount of money.

“It didn’t play into it at all,” Brown said. “But sometimes, people be asking for an outrageous number. … Stop. With all due respect to everybody in the country, to every wide receiver, to everybody doing all this stuff – if you’re going to make $2 million at wide receiver, that’s the homie at Ohio State [Jeremiah Smith]. Ain’t nobody else making that money. I ain’t giving no wide receiver $2 million in college, man.

“That ain’t me. I ain’t doing that. Unless somebody tells me that we have the chance to have Travis Hunter, he can come here and play for us, then he’ll get some of my check. I ain’t paying anybody $2 million. We ain’t giving nobody that.”

“First of all, I love the kid. Trebor’s my guy,” Brown said of Pena. “I recruited him, he came and played for me at Temple. Then, he got here. That was, what, six years ago? Then, I got here, and Trebor hadn’t played. I think he had 20 catches before we got here in four years. And there were somethings I had to help Trebor with, that we helped him with as a staff, and then he got better and had a really good year last year. Did an amazing job. As all the guys left, there’s a lot of pressure, I’ll say, in the world. Everybody don’t always handle everything accordingly that I would maybe handle it or you may handle it.

“But what I’ll tell you is this, we paid him enough. He was going to be paid more. There were different things that would go there. But there were some numbers that were asked of me that I didn’t feel I would be able to do and move on. Of course, I treat him right, I took care of him. Done everything that was needed. I just said, yo, you got to go. … I prayed on it and I kept going through things, and it was like, why would I try to convince somebody to be somewhere when I know the offense works? Because at Baylor, there was a lot of success with these receivers that all went to the NFL. There was success at other places. I was just like, now I have to tell him he needs to go.”

Steve Angeli Leaves Notre Dame For Syracuse

I’m not sure how much of this part is true, but I’ve heard rumblings that Pena’s requests were more than just about money. Rumor on the street is Pena was asking for a role in roster decision making, and once a player starts asking for that at the college level, Brown has every reason to respond the way he has.

Pena has since signed with Penn State for what will be his final collegiate season.

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