Growing up in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, Julian Fleming was surrounded by Penn State fans.
He says most people from his hometown, which is about an hour-and-a-half away from Penn State, root for the Nittany Lions. He has multiple childhood friends who play for the Nittany Lions now that he played AAU basketball with growing up. Of course, Fleming was heavily recruited by the Nittany Lions as the No. 1 wide receiver and No. 3 overall prospect in the class of 2020.
Despite all of that, Fleming chose to leave his home state to play for Ohio State. He’ll be back in his home state on Saturday, though, when the Buckeyes play Penn State at Beaver Stadium.
Because of his standing as one of the most highly touted recruits ever from Pennsylvania, Fleming is already a well-known name among Penn State fans, and he’s sure to draw the attention of the Nittany Lions and their fans – perhaps even some targeted boos in his direction – when he returns to the stadium he visited a multitude of times as a recruit. Fleming himself, however, says he’s trying to approach this week’s game the same way he’s been approaching every game.
“Honestly, I'm trying to take it as a regular game, which it is really. It’s just another game for us,” Fleming said. “We gotta go in prepared, I gotta go in prepared and be myself. We've gotta be the Buckeyes, we’ve gotta be the team that we're striving to be and we gotta play our best game of the season.”
Although he grew up around many Penn State fans, Fleming said he isn’t fulfilling many extra ticket requests this week.
“I mean, just really my immediate family, just my mom and people that have been there from the jump,” Fleming said. “It's just pretty much them I’m catering to.”
Fleming has good reason to keep his approach consistent with what he’s been doing all season. In the five games he’s played in this year, Fleming has caught at least one touchdown pass in every one of them. He’s coming off the first 100-yard game of his collegiate career after scoring a 79-yard touchdown – Ohio State’s longest play of the season so far – in the Buckeyes’ 54-10 win over Iowa.
FLEMING FOR 79 YARDS @OhioStateFB's offense is flying in the second half pic.twitter.com/szlvWed3oo
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 22, 2022
After a slow start to his Ohio State career, in large part due to injuries, Fleming already has more than twice as many receiving yards this season as he had in his first two years as a Buckeye combined. Fleming, who has 327 receiving yards and six touchdowns on just 17 catches after earning Iron Buckeye honors for being one of the team’s hardest workers this offseason, credits his emergence this year to an improved work ethic.
“I had a lot of injuries, a lot of ticky-tack stuff, a lot of bumps and bruises. And I felt like at first, I didn't really embrace those injuries and the process,” Fleming said. “And then as time went on, I finally realized that adversity was really carving me into the person that I wanted to be at the end, for the end goal. So I just had to embrace everything that I've been through and kinda wear it on my shoulder, and really just bring that chip in every single day.”
Ryan Day agrees with Fleming’s assessment that his improvement this year stems from the work he put in leading up to the season.
“It’s his overall approach. It's his offseason that he had, it's his leadership that we're seeing,” Day said. “He's had a different journey, but now you're seeing the best version of Julian and I know going back to Penn State's going to be important for him.”
C.J. Stroud, who’s had a close relationship with Fleming since they were on the same team at The Opening in 2019, has also seen Fleming put in a different level of work this year.
“He realized the work that he has to put in to be great and he put in that work and he's become way more, honestly, he's become a way better teammate and he's put the young guys under his wing and make sure that they listen to him and things like that,” Stroud said.
When Fleming wasn’t playing much or catching many passes last year, speculation started that Fleming could be a candidate to enter the transfer portal and perhaps even transfer to Penn State. Fleming, though, says that’s something he never considered.
“There's nowhere else I'd rather be,” Fleming said. “I’m around the best guys in the country, the best coaching staff in the country, strength staff in the country, list goes on and on. So it was just somewhere I felt like I could really thrive as time went on.”
Now more than three years removed from his commitment to Ohio State, Fleming isn’t particularly interested in reminiscing on the recruiting process. When asked if he ever came close to becoming a Nittany Lion instead of a Buckeye, Fleming said “I couldn't tell you that right now, just because it was so long ago.”
“They were, it was almost home for me, you know, it was right down the street. So they were definitely high up on my list, but I couldn't tell you who I was really like considering at that time,” Fleming said.
Having finally blossomed into the star receiver for the Buckeyes that he was always expected to be, Fleming is fully focused on continuing to make plays for Ohio State and helping the team win. He’ll continue to play a significant role this week, as he’ll be in line to make his fourth start of the season if Jaxon Smith-Njigba is unable to play due to his ongoing battle with injury.
It’ll certainly sting for Penn State coach James Franklin if he has to watch Fleming make plays against his defense on Saturday.
“It obviously stings a little bit more when you see them,” Franklin said this week when asked about playing against Fleming and other players he recruited at Penn State. “If you lose a guy and now you have to play against him for four years, it’s probably more impactful. I don’t know if it necessarily is, but it feels that way because you obviously see them.”
This won’t be the first time Fleming has returned to Penn State as a Buckeye, but he played only one snap in Ohio State’s 38-25 win in Happy Valley in his freshman year, making Saturday the first time he’ll have a real opportunity to make a statement in his home state.
There were also no fans in the stands for Ohio State’s 2020 game at Penn State, making Saturday the first time Fleming will play in front of a hostile crowd in State College. He’s well aware of what the atmosphere will be like from all the trips he made there as a recruit, though, so he’s prepared for the challenge that lies ahead this weekend.
“Honestly, it's an insane atmosphere. It’s loud all the time. And you really gotta, I mean, you can be right next to somebody and not even hear what they were saying,” Fleming said. “So it's definitely something that we're gonna have to be prepared for and execute at the highest level we have this season.”
