Penn State transfer wide receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith has committed to Auburn, he announced Wednesday.
Lambert-Smith, a 38-game starter who led the Nittany Lions in receiving last season, entered the transfer portal on April 15 and chose the Tigers over Texas A&M for his final season of eligibility.
GODS PLAN🙏🏾🦅🦅 let’s get to work!!..#bigplaydre #hey5 pic.twitter.com/ket6grTgcv
— uno (@drelambertt) April 24, 2024
The 6-foot-1, 184-pound senior emerged as Penn State’s No. 1 receiver last season and led the team with 53 receptions for 673 yards and four touchdowns to earn honorable mention All-Big Ten honors. His 38 career starts would have been the most among all returning Big Ten receivers entering 2024.
How does Lambert-Smith fit at Auburn?
Lambert-Smith joins an Auburn receiving corps that will feature many new faces in Year 2 under Hugh Freeze.
Five-star true freshman Cam Coleman was the star of the spring and will team with Lambert-Smith to lead a group that features returning contributors Caleb Burton III and Camden Brown, transfers Robert Lewis (Georgia State) and Sam Jackson V (Cal) and freshmen Perry Thompson and Bryce Cain. Tight end Rivaldo Fairweather, the Tigers’ leading receiver in 2023, is also back.
Auburn went 6-7 in 2023 and ranked 124th in passing at 162.2 yards per game. — Max Olson, national college football writer
What happened at Penn State?
Lambert-Smith began last season as the Nittany Lions’ No. 1 wide receiver, and statistically he finished that way. However, his production was nearly non-existent late in the season, as he caught just two passes for 28 yards in the last four games. Lambert-Smith was with the team for most of spring practice until the final week. He missed Penn State’s Blue-White Game and entered the portal on April 15.
His top game last season came in the opener against West Virginia, when he had four catches for 123 yards and two touchdowns. His 88-yard touchdown catch against Utah in the Rose Bowl in January 2023 will go down as his most memorable play in a Penn State uniform. Both those games showed his big-play potential, but he lacked consistency during his time in Happy Valley. He finished his Penn State career with 126 catches for 1,721 yards and 11 touchdowns in four years, including a total of six catches in two wins against Auburn in 2021 and ’22.
Lambert-Smith, who hails from Norfolk, Va., arrived at Penn State as a four-star prospect in the Class of 2020. Wide receiver was a weak spot for the Nittany Lions last year, and they tried to upgrade the unit this winter by adding Ohio State graduate transfer Julian Fleming, who figures to be Drew Allar’s top target. — Audrey Snyder, Penn State beat writer
Required reading
(Photo: Michael Chang / Getty Images)
