Andrew Rappleyea spent last season turning patience into production, and that has him positioned for a bigger role heading into 2026.
The redshirt junior tight end from Millbrook, New York, enters the year as one of the most seasoned players in Penn State’s tight end room. At 6-4 and 242 pounds, he has the kind of build the Nittany Lions want at the position, and he now has a full season of meaningful work to lean on.
Rappleyea appeared in 13 games in 2025 and started eight of them. He finished with 20 catches for 180 yards and three touchdowns, averaging 9.0 yards per reception.
His usage climbed as the season progressed. He opened with three receptions for 33 yards against Nevada, highlighted by a 26-yard catch.
He followed that with one catch for 11 yards against Villanova and two more grabs for 11 yards at UCLA. Against Nebraska, he found the end zone for the first time in his career on a 4-yard touchdown catch.
His biggest performance came at Rutgers, where he caught four passes for 75 yards and scored on a 53-yard touchdown. That game showed a different side of his game, proving he can stretch the field and not just operate underneath. He also scored on an 11-yard touchdown reception in the Pinstripe Bowl against Clemson and finished that game with five catches for 18 yards.
Pro Football Focus credited Rappleyea with 22 targets and 20 catches, a 90.9 percent catch rate. He totaled 180 receiving yards, three touchdowns and 132 yards after the catch. PFF gave him a 66.5 receiving grade and a 63.0 overall offensive grade.
There is still work to do in the blocking game. PFF logged Rappleyea for 234 run-blocking snaps in 2025, and his run-blocking grade came in at 55.5. In pass protection, he gave up one hurry and no sacks in limited action, earning a 68.9 pass-blocking grade.
Before arriving at Penn State, Rappleyea played at Milton Academy in Massachusetts and also spent time at Our Lady of Lourdes High School in New York. He was a four-star prospect and ranked among the top tight ends in the 2023 class.
Rappleyea now enters 2026 as a proven option. He has starts, production and bowl-game experience, and the next step is sharpening his blocking while staying reliable in the passing game.
In Other News...
Penn State Fans Are Just Realizing How Much Talent Left
Penn States offseason roster churn has been impossible to miss, and the scale of it says plenty about how much turnover the program has had to absorb. Forty players transferred in, many of them following head coach Matt Campbell from his former Iowa State program, but the other side of the ledger is just as telling, with a long list of familiar names leaving Happy Valley and popping up elsewhere as the 2025 season approaches.
What makes the exodus stand out is not just the volume, but the destinations attached to it. Several former Nittany Lions have surfaced at programs that will be familiar to Penn State fans for different reasons, from Virginia Tech to Temple, Tennessee and North Carolina State, with a particularly notable cluster heading to Blacksburg under James Franklin. It is the kind of transfer trail that leaves a fan base piecing together where the old depth chart went, and how much of the programs recent talent really was on the move. [Read more 🡒]
Penn State Kept A Key Pennsylvania Talent When It Mattered Most
Penn States 2026 class got a little more interesting when Jackson Ford stayed in the fold through a time when plenty of recruits might have looked elsewhere. The freshman defensive end from Malvern Prep was one of the more coveted prospects in Pennsylvania, a four-star talent whose profile made him the kind of developmental edge player the Nittany Lions can afford to be patient with.
Fords loyalty matters because it kept a top in-state piece attached to the program while the roster and recruiting picture shifted around him. A player with his ceiling gives Penn State another reason to feel good about the long view, especially with a local prospect who had the kind of production and pedigree that usually invites late drama before signing day. [Read more 🡒]