'Every Time I Take the Field With My Brother, He Helps Me'
For a brief moment, Kalen and Kobe King considered playing football for different colleges. As twins, they're tight but not inseparable. So the thought wasn't out of the ordinary.
Then the brothers from Michigan visited Penn State and found their fit. Together.
"Coming up here and seeing the stadium, it was somewhere I could see myself playing and excelling," Kobe King said. "And playing with my brother as well."
Expect to see plenty of the King brothers this season for Penn State, as they expect to be on the field a lot together. Kalen King emerged as a standout freshman at cornerback last season, playing in 13 games and starting the Outback Bowl after Tariq Castro-Fields opted out.
Kobe played in four games at linebacker but did not play in the bowl game, choosing instead to preserve his redshirt season. Now, Kalen King is a projected starter at cornerback, while Kobe is competing with Tyler Elsdon for the starting role at middle linebacker.
Penn State coach James Franklin has raved about Kalen King since last spring, when the then-freshman began making plays across the secondary. Kalen pressed himself into the rotation because of that.
Kobe King, meanwhile, assumed some early responsibility, making two tackles and a quarterback hurry against Villanova, while learning from Ellis Brooks and Brandon Smith.
Defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said Kobe made strides this spring toward competing to start. And with fellow middle linebacker Tyler Elsdon out for the Blue-White Game, Kobe King ran the point.
"It was very important for Kobe to get a feel for being the middle linebacker at Penn State," Diaz said.
Kalen and Kobe King have been playing football together since they were kids, so returning to the starting lineup together will feel comfortable. Both were four-year letterwinners and two-time captains at Detroit's Cass Technical, where they were all-state players.
Kalen King was a two-time all-state selection who scored 13 touchdowns playing offense as a junior. Kobe King was named the 2019 Detroit Public School League linebacker of the year in 2019.
Despite briefly entertaining separate offers, the brothers mostly conducted the recruiting process together.
"We never took separate visits; every visit we took was together with our families," Kalen King said. "... It wasn't hard at all because that's really all we know. We've been playing together since we were little. Getting recruited together was just another step."
Of course, they're roommates at Penn State. Kalen said his brother is a "great roommate." Added Kobe, "We get into some altercations, but he's a good roommate." They do study a lot of film together and are ready to turn their skills loose this season.
Kalen King has come a long way from the practice reps he took against Jahan Dotson last year. During one, Dotson made a catch, then uncharacteristically jawed with the then-freshman. That was Kalen's welcome-to-college-football moment.
"He used to give me a lot of work," Kalen King said of Dotson. "One specific time in practice, he caught a deep ball on me and he got up and screamed something, but I’m not going to reiterate it. It got to me. It was a little humbling experience."
That experience made Kalen stronger, and he became one of Penn State's key secondary players. He broke up two passes against Rutgers and made a career-high seven tackles against Arkansas in the Outback Bowl.
"I just took advantage of the opportunities that I received toward the second half of the season," Kalen King said. "Because I started out kind of slow, I had to get used to things. The first couple games of last season were kind of rough, but the more I got acclimated to it, I became more confident."
Kobe King expects to make a similar leap this season. As the middle linebacker, he'll be responsible for making defensive calls. It's a tough ask for a redshirt freshman new to the starting lineup.
But Kobe King said he has the personality, and the voice, to step into that role.
"When I first got there, I would say I needed to be way more vocal, and by the end of spring it showed," he said. "I was more vocal and more straightforward. I'm comfortable around the guys, and I just like to talk. If I'm walking into a room, I like to lift people up."
Kobe King said he and his brother could have played college football at different programs. However, playing together has "meant everything to us," he added.
That will mean even more this season when they're on the field together more often.
"Every time I take the field with my brother, he helps me," Kalen King said. "It just takes us back to the times when we were younger, working out with our dad. And it shows us that bigger and bigger stages we get on, the more the hard work we put in pays off for us."
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