Signing Day Recap

National Signing Day has come and gone as Penn State ends up with the #14 class in the country and the #2 class in the Big Ten (behind only the reigning National Champions - Ohio State).  Overall, not too shabby.  Black Shoe Diaries did an exceptional job covering the day's festivities and since I'm just one man, I figured it would be more economical to simply share some of their best resources with you guys.  So if you're really into recruiting, might I suggest the following:

- The official NSD "draft board" complete with bios and predictions for each recruit.  Just click on their name and you'll be provided with more information than you probably care to know.

- The NSD edition of the Black Shoe Podcast, complete with commentary from friend of the blog, Matt de Bear.  Careful, this one got rather long, running well over 2 hours.  But hey, if you're bored there's a lot of great stuff in there.

- A great (although also rather long) article about the "new era" of Penn State recruiting.  Definitely worth the read if you have the time.

- Finally, a highlight video of all the day's action.

With all of that out of the way, I will take this opportunity to point out a couple of things I noticed about this class.  First of all, don't let that #14 ranking fool you.  This class is incredibly talented and fits the needs of James Franklin and his staff perfectly.  Unfortunately, recruiting websites don't take into consideration how a class fits in with the program and they usually just base their rankings off star ratings.  That's not the most accurate way of measuring recruiting classes, but what are you gonna do?  The next thing I noticed was that this is what I like to call a "complete" class.  In other words, Penn State picked up at least one player at every single position on the field, and in a few cases they even have backups.  These guys could suit up and scrimmage against another team tomorrow if they wanted and that's freaking awesome!  I created a picture (below) with each of their names laid out in a typical offensive and defensive formation to show just how perfect this class came together.  Lastly, James Franklin wasn't kidding when he talked about dominating the state.  He managed to pull in nearly every blue-chip recruit in the state while also flipping two prospects who were originally committed to Pittsburgh less than two weeks before the big day.  The renewal of that rivalry in 2016 can't come soon enough!

So without further adieu, I give to you Penn State's 2015 Recruiting Class!

It's definitely a good looking group and it should go a long way towards getting Penn State back to its rightful place near or at the top of the college football world... oh, and spoiler alert, the 2016 class is already looking like it's going to be even better than this one!

Alright, I know this post was a little late getting out but I'm sure you'll all forgive me.  Look out for at least one more post before the end of February, depending on the amount of news that comes out.  As always the easiest way to keep up with everything Penn State football is to head on over to my Facebook page and give it a like or even a share.  Since it's the offseason there isn't much to talk about so feel free to send your questions to PSUOptimus@gmail.com and maybe they'll end up in a Q&A post right here on the blog.  Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @PSUOptimus, and as always, go State!