How do you measure greatness?

Is it individual numbers? Team success? A little bit of both?

Everyone has their own definition, but there’s an inherent difference between a player’s individual dominance and how good the team they played on was. A great baseball player can only step into the box one out of nine at-bats. A great football player only plays one side of the ball. A great basketball player can’t will his team to greatness without some components of a team around him.

Sometimes, greatness is concealed in bad team seasons, but those players still deserve the shine of players in winning situations. There’s a mix of both atop Penn State’s best seasons by individual athletes in history.

Football: Larry Johnson (2002)

There are a lot of ways you can make an impact on a football field, and while many programs would likely have their best all-time season be a quarterback, Penn State’s is definitely a running back. Trace McSorley’s 2016 campaign is likely the best in program history at quarterback, but even that team was very running-centric.

Penn State also has a Heisman Trophy winner in John Cappelletti in 1973, but his season doesn’t stack up to the sheer dominance that Larry Johnson displayed in 2002, a season where Joe Paterno’s team went just 9-4.

With an inconsistent passing game, Johnson was the vast majority of the team’s offense. After several years without a consistent bellcow running back, Johnson got 271 carries, the first Nittany Lion to reach that height in five years. And what he did with those carries is staggering.

While he started the year with a modest 619 rushing yards through six games, his back half of the season was legendary.

23 carries for 257 yards and two touchdowns against Northwestern.

31 carries for 279 yards and a touchdown against Illinois.

19 carries for 279 yards and four touchdowns against Michigan State.

His magnum opus was becoming the only Nittany Lion to rush for 300 yards in a game against Indiana when he had 28 carries for 327 yards and four touchdowns in a blowout victory.

271 carries, 2,087 rushing yards, 20 rushing touchdowns. And then you add in his receiving numbers, 312 touches for 2,436 yards and 24 touchdowns. He also had a 53-yard kick return. Go figure.

How did he finish third in Heisman voting?

Men’s Basketball: Jesse Arnelle (1954-55)

The problem with going back 70 years to look at an individual season is that the sport itself is fundamentally different from what it is now, but no season even comes close to what Jesse Arnelle did in 1954-55.

Just one year after leading Penn State to the Final Four, Arnelle averaged 26.1 points and 15.3 rebounds per game in 28 games, leading the Nittany Lions to another deep run in the NCAA Tournament.

Stats are extremely limited from this time, but the 6’5″ forward was one of the nation’s leading scorers and still holds multiple program records. Three of the six 40-point games in Penn State hoops history belong to Arnelle… during this season.

Women’s Basketball: Susan Robinson (1991-92)

Susan Robinson was a consensus All-American as a senior in 1992, winning the Wade Trophy as the best player in women’s college basketball. It came in a year that wasn’t quite her best statistical season, averaging 18 points and eight rebounds on 51.2% shooting from the field and 40.4% from three-point range (during the early days of the three-point line in the NCAA).

Another one of the greatest Lady Lions of all time, Kelly Mazzante, had three seasons averaging at least 20 points per game, including a dominant 2001-02 season averaging 24.9 on a stacked Lady Lions roster.

Men’s Hockey: Gavin McKenna (2025-26)

There are options here, including Gavin McKenna’s teammate, Aiden Fink, in 2024-25. Both were Hobey Baker Award finalists, All-Americans, and are two of the only three Nittany Lions to record 50 points in a season.

But the individual display of dominance McKenna showed despite a mountain of injuries impacting who he played with throughout the year stands out to me. As does the theatrics. His eight-point game against Ohio State, his hat trick against eventual national runner-up Wisconsin, and his swagger on the ice.

Walking out of Pegula with a single-game program record 8⃣ POINTS like… pic.twitter.com/SbY7NKaA37

— Penn State Men’s Hockey (@PennStateMHKY) February 21, 2026

McKenna put up 15 goals and 36 assists in just 35 games, breaking the program record in assists and points per game. He was the Big Ten’s leading scorer, the Big Ten Freshman of the Year, and finished second behind Quinnipiac’s Ethan Wyttenbach in national scoring. And that’s with a slow start, as he produced 35 of his 51 points in his final 21 games.

If that’s all we get from McKenna as a Nittany Lion, it was definitely a memorable year.

Women’s Hockey: Tessa Janecke (2025-26)

Any of the last three seasons of Tessa Janecke’s would be worthy of this spot, as would multiple seasons from Kiara Zanon, who entered 2025-26 with the all-time program record for goals in a season (26) and points-per-game average (1.43).

But the dominance by Penn State’s first-ever Olympic gold medalist in hockey is undeniable. The senior, who set and then tied her own program record for points in a season the last two years, was held to just 48 points in 2025-26, but did so in just 31 games after missing several weeks of action by, you know, playing in the Olympics and returning home with a gold medal.

Despite playing in seven fewer games than she did in the two prior seasons, Janecke scored a career-high 26 goals, including a hat trick in her first game back against Syracuse on February 27, and two goals in the Frozen Four against Wisconsin.

Tessa Janecke scores the game-tying goal in the third period for Penn State pic.twitter.com/g9JL7jJGxN

— espnW (@espnW) March 21, 2026

Her 1.55 points per game this year is the new program record, and her 26 goals tied the program record despite missing an entire month. Janecke became the first-ever Penn State finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award, being considered a top-three player in all of women’s college hockey.

Wrestling: Mitchell Mesenbrink (2025-26)

The best wrestler in the best season in program history, the dominant wrestling national champions yielded the eighth-ever Hodge Trophy winner in Penn State history this year, with a historic season that has a case for one of the most dominant in college wrestling history.

Mitchell Mesenbrink went 27-0, but it was the way he went 27-0 that stood out. 26 of his wins were by bonus points, specifically eight pins, 11 technical falls, six major decisions, and a forfeit. He had the most lopsided Hodge Trophy voting victory in recorded history.

The only match he wrestled all season that ended in a victory by less than eight points was in the NCAA Quarterfinals against North Carolina’s Bryce Hepner, who had a scary fall on his neck in the first period that disrupted the flow of a match that ultimately ended in a 6-0 win by Mesenbrink with four near-fall points. That match is the only one in Mesenbrink’s 81 career collegiate matches where he was held without a takedown.

The cherry on top? He became the first wrestler since 1998 to win a national title via tech fall, decimating Michael Caliendo of Iowa in the championship match.

Baseball: Michael Anderson (2026)

Too early? The season’s not even over yet.

While a season-ending slump is possible, I’m ready to call it. Michael Anderson is having the greatest single season in Penn State baseball history.

While the team has disappointed around him, the Arkansas transfer is slashing .364/.481/.795 with 18 home runs and 47 RBIs. He blends being the most prolific power bat in program history, one shy of the program record for home runs with 10 games left, with great plate discipline, drawing 20 walks and being hit by a pitch 15 times, while only striking out 23 times in 187 plate appearances for a 12.3% strikeout rate.

Michael Anderson!!! He mashes a two-run homer to left! His 17th of the year!

B4 | PSU 5, BUCK 1#WeAre pic.twitter.com/aRogYnVtpB

— Penn State Baseball (@PennStateBASE) April 21, 2026

Multiple program records are in reach, even if the team might miss the postseason altogether.

Softball: Cassidy Bell (2013)

It’s not every day that you see a player put up a record-breaking batting average while also being the most prolific home run hitter in program history, but that’s exactly what Cassidy Bell was for the Nittany Lions in 2013.

After a strong junior campaign, which saw her hit .423, she stepped it up to slash a baffling .456/.591/1.007. To put up a slugging percentage over 1.000, you have to be a truly special power hitter, and that’s exactly what she was. 20 home runs and 34 extra-base hits in just 50 games.

Some more unbelievable numbers: Bell drew 56 total walks in her first three seasons across 139 games. In 2013 alone? 42 walks in 50 games. She struck out just 15 times in 181 plate appearances, an 8.1% strikeout rate. She stole 18 bases in 21 attempts.

Bell recorded a hit in 41 of the team’s 50 games. Even as the team struggled to an ugly 16-34 record, she set program records in batting average, home runs, walks, total bases, and runs scored that still stand to this day.

Men’s Lacrosse: Grant Ament and Mac O’Keefe (2019)

I’m cheating here. Both of these seasons were so otherworldly, and both occurred in the same season, so they can go together.

Grant Ament scored 30 goals with 96 assists in just 17 games, finishing second in NCAA history behind Yale’s Lyle Thompson in total points with 126. Mac O’Keefe shattered his own program record of 51 goals by scoring an unfathomable 78 goals in 18 games, becoming just the fourth men’s lacrosse player to pot 75 goals in one season.

That dynamic duo, who were both named All-Americans, led Penn State to its first-ever Final Four in a memorable 16-2 season.

Women’s Lacrosse: Marsha Florio (1985)

Unlike in men’s lacrosse, these numbers aren’t among the best in all of NCAA history, but they’re still jaw-dropping enough to make you admire the greatness.

In 18 games, Marsha Florio set the program record with 79 goals and 109 points. The only other Nittany Lion to top her mark in goals per game was Candy Finn four years earlier, scoring 76 goals in 15 games.

The most impressive part of Florio’s 1985 season, you may ask? While she only had 30 assists in those 18 games as more of a goalscorer, she notched eight of them in a single game to set the single-game program record against Princeton. She also scored nine goals, tying an NCAA record for points in a game with 17.

Men’s Soccer: Jim Stamatis (1979)

Jim Stamatis is the only Penn State men’s soccer player to win the Mac Hermann Trophy for the best collegiate soccer player, and he was more than deserving.

Penn State went 18-4-1 en route to a College Cup appearance, and Stamatis tallied 16 goals and 12 assists for 44 points in 23 games, an impressive sum. And yet, it wasn’t even his highest-scoring season, as he potted 20 goals with 45 points two years earlier in 1977, but was not named a finalist for the award in a slightly worse season for the team.

Women’s Soccer: Raquel Rodriguez (2015)

You want to separate team and individual accomplishments when you do this exercise, but sometimes, the two are so intertwined that they can’t be ignored.

Raquel Rodriguez’s season stats aren’t atop the program’s records. The Costa Rica native was a midfielder who only scored six goals with six assists in 27 games in 2015, but still became the second Nittany Lion to win the Hermann Trophy in women’s soccer. It helps that she did this for the best team in program history, finishing with a record of 22-3-2 and a national championship to show for it.

That national championship? Won on the foot of Rodriguez, who netted the game-winning goal in the national title game against Duke in the 72nd minute in a 1-0 final.

Field Hockey: Candy Finn (1981)

If this name sounds familiar, it’s because she also played lacrosse.

Candy Finn played lacrosse in the spring and field hockey in the fall. All told, she may have had the greatest single calendar year of any athlete in college sports history:

Lacrosse: 76 goals (2nd in program history), 17 assists, 93 points, 5.07 goals/game (1st)
Field Hockey: 34 goals (1st), four assists, 72 points (2nd)

To have a case for the single greatest season in two different sports in the same year is mind-boggling.