Moving on...
I'd like to start today by congratulating all of the Penn State students, and especially the 700+ dancers who participated in THON 2014 this past weekend! This year's total shattered last year's record of $12.3 million by a million dollars, finishing with a whopping $13,343,517.33!!! And as always, all of it is For The Kids! So, great job everyone; this is who WE really are! (keeping it football related, here is James Franklin's speech at THON)
Ok, with that out of the way, let's get back to football. Monday was a big recruiting day for the Nittany Lions as James Franklin and Company played host to a bevy of recruits on campus. The day ended with 2 more commitments, bringing the 2015 class up to 6 commits. 3-star LB Jake Cooper and 3-star DE Ryan Buchholz both hail from Pennsylvania and both came away from their visits impressed enough to pledge their commitment to Penn State. 4 of the 6 recruits from the 2015 class are from the Keystone State, which already surpasses the number of Pennsylvania kids in the 2014 class (3). Additionally, half the class is currently ranked as 4-stars or higher. Looks to me like James Franklin's promise to "dominate the state" wasn't just strong talk, it was a promise. Penn State is now considered to have the best class in the Big Ten at this still very early stage in the recruiting game. There's obviously still a long way to go until National Signing Day 2015, but this is arguably the best recruiting start PSU has had in decades!
Now if you just can't get enough recruiting news, then have I got a surprise for you! Today we're featuring our first ever contributing piece here on the blog. Friend of the blog, Brian Bender, has graciously offered an in depth analysis of Penn State's recruiting targets for the upcoming class. You might remember Brian as the winner of my 1st Annual Prime Pick 'Em Bowl Pool, so clearly he knows his stuff. In fact, considering he gave this to me on Friday, and already the #1 LB and #1 DE on his board have committed, you'd be a fool not to read this!
In other news, as the NFL Combine wrapped up on Monday, I figured I'd give you all some links from our friends over at PennLive so you could see how your favorite former Nittany Lions did:
- John Urschel... who also wrote a diary about the experience
Finally, it may interest you to know that former defensive coordinator and interim head coach, Tom Bradley, has accepted a position with West Virginia as a defensive assistant. We wish Coach Bradley nothing but the best in all his future endeavors, besides, we don't play West Virginia, so they're cool in my book.
Ok, that's all for now. Keep it here all offseason for the latest Penn State football news and notes, don't forget to follow me on Twitter @PSUOptimus, and as always, go State!
Think you need to change accessibility to anyone with the link! A couple more changes since I made that:
ReplyDelete1. Andre Robinson committed several months earlier than everyone thought. He was blown away Monday (and almost committed on the spot then!)
2. Staff is still looking to take Josh Adams as an ATH most likely (or WR). As far as I know he's still on board. If he comes up for B/W weekend look for a commitment then.
3. From what I can tell it's a race between Juwan Johnson and Sterling Jenkins for the next commitment. With how good these guys are, that is an awesome thing.
4. Wimbush pushed back his commitment again. He is opting to visit OSU for their spring game instead of us, and took a visit to Miami on Monday.
Sorry about that. I noticed that the other day and was going to fix it but the mobile version doesn't allow you to access those settings, so I had to wait until I got back to my computer. I'm adding it to the next post to make up for it.
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