Will Koby Howard play for Penn State football in the White Out vs USC?

Penn State football will not have its star receiver back its White Out game against USC on Saturday, Oct. 10.

Though sophomore Koby Howard is reportedly making progress in his recovery from an unidentified injury, he’s still “a couple of weeks away” from returning to the Nittany Lions, coach Matt Campbell said during his weekly Tuesday press conference.

Howard suffered the lower-body injury during his 70-yard, catch-and-run touchdown play in the Sept. 19 victory over Buffalo, Campbell said. At the time, Howard was ranked seventh nationally in both total receiving yards (344) and average yards per game (114.7).

He’s averaging an astounding 28.7 yards on his 12 receptions.

Howard’s availability is a pertinent issue for a Penn State team that’s lost back-to-back Big Ten games, in part, because of a feeble offense. The Lions have produced just one play of greater than 20 years in each of the defeats to Wisconsin and Northwestern.

At this point, Howard could return for the road game at Michigan on Oct. 17 or following an off-week. The Lions will then play Purdue on Halloween.

“One thing that Koby brought was consistency, right?” Campbell said. “He was the guy that was consistently executing, and (receiver Chase Sowell) is doing that right now at a really high rate, and (tight end Ben Brahmer) and some of those guys.

“But when you had Koby, Koby was the guy that was creating matchup (problems). And you were creating a lot of those matchups in the first couple games to kind of get him situated.”

Sowell, a senior, has been the primary target in Howard’s absence, and he’s led the Lions with a combined 11 receptions for 138 yards and a touchdown the past two weeks.

Frank Bodani covers Penn State football for the York Daily Record and USA Today Network. Contact him at  fbodani@ydr.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @YDRPennState.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Will Koby Howard play for Penn State football in the White Out vs USC?