For Penn State's Twins From Michigan, a Chance to Be Kings

Kalen and Kobe King from Detroit will form the center of Penn State's defense vs. Michigan.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. | Growing up in Detroit, Kobe and Kalen King regularly squared off against the best high school football talent in Michigan. That included NFL star Sauce Gardner, Michigan State receiver Antonio Gates Jr., current Penn State teammate Jaylen Reed and many others. At Cass Technical High, the brothers also grew up watching the Michigan Wolverines and might have played there together. Or they could have played for different schools, which their mother Felicia could not have imagined.

“I prayed that they stayed together,” Felicia said, “because I don’t know what I would’ve done if they would’ve split up.”

Kalen, a preseason All-American cornerback, and Kobe, Penn State’s starting middle linebacker, will be integral for the Nittany Lions on Saturday against No. 3 Michigan. In its last breath of maximizing one of coach James Franklin’s most talented rosters, Penn State will lean on a defense shaped in part by the twin brothers from Michigan.

Kalen has played virtually since his first day at Penn State, led the Big Ten in passes defended (21) and pass breakups (18) last season and could be a first-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Yet Kalen acknowledged his struggles at Ohio State in covering Heisman-contending wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., candidly calling it one of the worst games of his career. He’s ready for another chance at a top-five opponent in front of scores of family and friends.

Kobe, meanwhile, won the starting middle linebacker job this offseason and has flourished through the year. He ranks fourth on the team in tackles and acts as Penn State's defensive quarterback, continuing the arc he began as a freshman in 2021. Kobe played in four regular-season games and planned to burn his redshirt in the 2022 Outback Bowl. In fact, he was calling the defense during bowl-week practice until just days before the game when he, his father TaDarrell and Penn State coach James Franklin decided to preserve that year of eligibility. Kobe now will be a key component of the defense for at least another year.

Saturday’s game against Michigan represents the next stage of their journey, both together and at Penn State. This week, Kobe called this “definitely” a statement game.

“Everything in this game is like gold. We need this game. That’s really it," Kobe said this week. "... This is a game that we feel like is going to help us in the near future. And we've gotta take advantage of it.”

Penn State's Kobe King (left) and Kalen King are twin brothers from Michigan who are starters for the Nittany Lions' defense :: Mark Wogenrich/AllPennState

‘Do you understand what you just did?’

At Cass Tech, Kalen and Kobe bloomed from separate “aha” moments on the football field. Kobe’s occurred in the 2019 Michigan state playoffs. Playing running back, he took a red-zone handoff near the 5-yard line, started inside but bounced toward the sideline, opting for a footrace to the front pylon. Kobe lost that race, running out of bounds at the 1-yard line. Then-Cass Tech coach Thomas Wilcher was beside himself.

“Oh my god. I said, ‘Do you understand what you just did?’” Wilcher said, chuckling as he told the story. Cass Tech lost, so why the laughs? Because at 6-1, 242 pounds, Kobe should have been running through defenders instead of around them. Wilcher knew, but Kobe had not realized that yet. So Wilcher showed Kobe film of former Cass Tech and Ohio State running back Mike Weber to drive home the point.

“It was funny, because he loved Mike Weber. … It was like a Saquon [Barkley] to him because we never had a running back out of Michigan like that,” Kobe said. “Seeing his film, the way he attacked everyone, the way he ran the ball and the way he carried the ball in his hands. It was a different type of approach from him, day in and day out.”

Kobe took those film sessions to heart. Former Cass Tech defensive coordinator Dennis Parker remembered watching defenders from rival Martin Luther King literally step away from tackling Kobe. Cass Tech played Martin Luther King again during Kobe’s senior year, and Parker watched, and listened, to Kobe deliver a hit on an opposing back.

“The speed that he played downhill, and the sound that you heard on that hit, it was like — the whole stadium was like, ‘Oh my goodness,’ because it sounded like a trainwreck,” Parker said. “It was one of those where you had to stop and pause for a second and say, ‘Whoa.’ You know what I mean?"

Added Parker, “He played with a physicality like I can’t even put into words.”

‘Really, all my life I’ve been in battles’

Kalen had his “aha” as a high school junior. He was struggling to get in a “groove” defensively, Wilcher said, calling it a mental process.

“I was like, ‘Do you know you took a starting guy’s position last year?’ He was going to a Division I school, he had all these honors and all that,” Wilcher said, which Kalen acknowledged as fact. “‘But you ain’t playing like that guy.’ And once he got that aha moment, sheesh. It was lights out.”

Kalen constantly tested the line with his trash talk, like he often does at Penn State. He wasn’t disrespectful and never caused too much trouble, but he’d never back down from a challenge and always showed confidence that he was better in man-to-man matchups. That led to some legendary on-field battles, especially with Gates.

“You’d have thought that it was Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier,” Parker said of a playoff matchup between the two. “[Kalen] made it a point to, wherever that kid was on the field, he was there.”

Kalen and Gates developed a close relationship off the field, having played with each other since youth football. Kalen remembered a time when he and Gates were 9 or 10 years old and would battle 1-on-1 at practices.

“Really all my life, I've been in battles,” Kalen said. “From that point, man, that's really where I got this competitive nature from. That just carried in high school, when I'd see him in high school. We already had so many battles when we were younger, once we met each other in high school, we already knew what type of game it was going to be.”

'We want to be great'

Kalen and Kobe were high-level athletes outside of football as well. They played basketball (they’re named after Kobe Bryant and Jalen Rose), Kobe wrestled and Kalen ran track. Kobe was a national champion wrestler in high school. But the football potential emerged early, when they were around 6 years old.

“They used to always run into each other and wrestle around the house,” TaDarrell said. “So once they got out there and they got organized and they started making plays at that age, I was like, 'Hey, man, they've got a shot.’

“I asked them if they wanted to be good or if they wanted to be great. When they both answered, ‘We want to be great,’ I told them there's gonna be some sacrifice, and there'll be some things that you guys gotta miss out on because you gotta put this work in,” TaDarrell added. “And ever since that moment, man, they've been dedicated to the craft.”

Playing for different schools would have been unthinkable for the Kings, yet it almost happened. The brothers did the majority of their recruiting activities together, from receiving offers to taking visits and attending camps. At one point, Kalen leaned toward Michigan and liked Florida, while Kobe nearly was set on Wisconsin and had wanted to visit Auburn. 

During the recruiting process, Wilcher advised the brothers to think about their parents. Parker reminded them that most schools have similar facilities, so they should pick the one where they will be happy outside of football, too. They took one more visit to Penn State and committed together shortly after. It didn’t hurt that Micah Parsons hosted the pair on their visit, which added the “finishing touches,” said TaDarrell.

Naturally, Kobe and Kalen did, and do, everything together. They’re roommates at Penn State. As Felicia said, Kalen can think of a song while Kobe starts to sing it, and they translate that connection to the field. But they’re certainly not the same person.

“When it comes to sports, they like the same things, but everything else, they’re totally different,” TaDarrell said. “One’s hot, one’s cold. One’s red, one’s blue. One’s a burger man, one’s chicken wings. It’s just opposite.”

Felicia considers herself blessed because she never had problems raising Kalen and Kobe, outside of breaking up the occasional fight between the twins. They handled chores for seven years; one did dishes, the other took out the trash. Felicia misses her only sons, but if there’s anything she doesn’t miss as a football parent, it’s the smell of the locker room seeping into her car’s seats.

“When I think of the definition of good young men, those twins, Kalen and Kobe, excellent young men. Their parents did a great job with them.” Parker said. “Respectful, caring, intelligent, critical thinkers. Just excellent young men, outside of being excellent football players.”

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Max Ralph is a Penn State senior studying Broadcast Journalism with minors in sports studies and Japanese. He previously covered Penn State football for two years with The Daily Collegian and has reported with the Associated Press and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Follow him on Twitter (X) @maxralph_ and Instagram @mralph_59.

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