Penn State continued its roster rebuild on Tuesday evening, landing former Ohio State running back James Peoples.
Peoples is a 5-foot-10, 206-pound running back that was a consensus Top 150 prospect in the 2024 recruiting class. He enrolled early at Ohio State and skipped a redshirt season, seeing time in eight games in mostly mop up duty. He was expected to have a larger role in 2025, but with the emergence of true freshman running back Bo Jackson, Peoples served in mostly secondary role once again. On the season, he carried the ball 61 times for 344 yards (5.6 YPC) and 3 TDs.
Peoples joins a running back room at Penn State that has former Iowa State back Carson Hansen and Quinton Martin returning as well. There’s some level of hope that Tikey Hayes will be back as well, though he’s given no indication on his status with the transfer portal open.
Regardless of what Hayes does, I think it’s likely that the Nittany Lions are looking at a running back-by-committee of sorts. Hansen likely leads the way, but I think there’s a good chance that Martin and Peoples have decent-sized roles in the offense.
