+3
New Penn State head coach Bill O'Brien has a plan for recruiting.
It was quite the weekend for the Penn State program, both on the recruiting trail. New head coach Bill O'Brien helped guide the New England Patriots past the Baltimore Ravens and into the Super Bowl. And the Nittany Lions landed four commitments.
Black Shoe Diaries, the excellent Penn State blog has the details. First up is three-star running back Akeel Lynch. Lynch, from Attica (N.Y.) St. Francis High School, had been committed to Boston College. But it was just a matter of time before he switched, according to Penn State insiders. Lynch looks good on film (see link), and appears he can be a workhorse back, should Penn State need him to tote the rock 20 times per game.
Three other commitments also joined the fold, in receiver Jonathan Warner, cornerback Da'Quan Davis and receiver Trevor Williams. Davis has good speed and quickness for the corner position and is an improving prospect. Warner and Williams are possession types who should be dependable.
Jeff Junstrom has an excellent update up on Penn State's most recent recruiting weekend. It's absolutely worth a read. In it, Junstrom details the weekend visitors, committed players who the new coaching staff reached out to, and this bit from a recent interview given by new head coach Bill O'Brien:
Coach O'Brien recently gave a free interview to Fight On State in which he discussed his recruiting philosophies. There is a lot of good information there, but the part that stuck out to me was his answer to the question about recruiting areas for each coach (emphasis mine):
[Mark Brennan, editor, FightOnState.com]: In the past, Penn State has really focused on a 300-mile radius (around State College). Is that something that will continue? Do you kind of have to keep your own house in order first before looking outside? Or do you look outside immediately?
[Coach O'Brien]: There's three main (things) we have to do to make sure we have the best program in the Big Ten. Number one is we've got to take care of that 300-mile radius. We've got to do a great job in the state of Pennsylvania. We've got to be able to go into Ohio. We've got to be able to go into Chicago. We've got to be able to go into New England and New York. And then, the mid-Atlantic states, especially with the job Larry Johnson has done recruiting in the Baltimore/D.C. area. That's definitely one of the objectives.
Then we've got to do a great job of recruiting the East Coast. So we're going to have three or four coaches in the state of Florida. We're going to have two coaches in the state of Georgia. (They'll be) looking for the types of guys we think will be a great fit for Penn State. But we've got to build our program, the foundation of our program, has to be with prospects from that 300-mile radius. Then we have to go down to Florida and Georgia and use the connections that we all have from when we recruited for different schools and find some Penn State players.
Then the third category I would say is anybody on our staff, including me, who has a connection to a guy who is playing in Texas or maybe California. Maybe it's an alum's son or something like that. We definitely will look to other parts of the country. But we have to concentrate on the East Coast.
Penn State has not won the national title in the lifetime of any current recruit. It will be interesting to see how much the Penn State brand is worth on a national level, as this is the first time in a while Penn State will look to recruit semi-nationally.
This is an excellent update and you should absolutely check out the rest at Black Shoe Diaries.
Penn State Recruiting: Bill O'Brien Paying Minimal Attention To Signing Day
New England Patriots offensive coordinator spent much of his Super Bowl media day time being asked about the Penn St. Nittany Lions. As he prepares for Sunday's game, he's also got to keep a portion of his mind on his next job, which begins as soon as the Pats' season finally ends.
O'Brien has his work cut out for him once he does finally arrive in State College. Not only is there that replacing-Joe-Paterno thing, he's also got to immediately begin work on a 2013 recruiting class that will need to make up for a leaking 2012 ship. He wasn't able to invest much of any time into the 2012 class, which will officially come aboard on Wednesday.
For the time being, in fact, O'Brien says he's not able to do much of anything beyond seeing a list of recruits once it's finalized. Transcript via the Patriots:
B.O'.B. is in a tough position for the rest of the week. He's got to say things just right to appease both his current and future fan bases, but there's really not much more he could be doing for PSU at the moment. This class pretty much is what it is, and, all things considered, it's really not that bad.
For more on the Nittany Lions, visit Penn State blog Black Shoe Diaries and SB Nation Pittsburgh.
Jan 31 3:35p by Jason Kirk - 0 comments