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T H E B I G P I C T U R E tion like Penn State and compete in the classroom and compete on the football field and keep chipping away at where we're going. That's what I see. I keep seeing us take positive steps in the right direction and continuing to surround ourselves with families and kids who want to be a part of something special." That glowing assessment only bright- ened with the addition of four players on the traditional signing day. There were a few big misses, the most notable being Doug Nester, who flipped from Ohio State as had been widely expected, just not to Penn State; the four-star offen- sive lineman signed instead with Vir- ginia Tech. Still, Franklin made sure to accentuate the positive. "I'm excited how the class filled out," he said, "ex- cited about what we'll be able to do in the off-season. Obviously, there are a lot more question marks going into this season than maybe we had in the past, but I'm excited about where we're going." Franklin had reason to feel that way. Among the Nittany Lions' new players are a pair of four-star running backs, solid reinforcements for the offensive and defensive lines, a half-dozen blue- chip defensive backs and two lineback- ers who appear to have the ability to add another chapter to the program's storied history at that position group. Some of those players are likely to have an early impact on Penn State's fortunes; line- backer Brandon Smith and running backs Noah Cain and Devyn Ford come to mind, as all three are elite prospects who dovetail nicely with the Lions' cur- rent needs. Some others, such as quar- terbacks Ta'Quan Roberson and Michael Johnson Jr., are almost certain to red- shirt this coming season as they accli- mate to the college game. fers and he came up and we didn't offer. He had offers from everybody, and a lot of times when you do that, guys leave and they feel slighted and for whatever reason, that was something that they really liked, that we weren't just going to throw an offer out. We wanted to know the family. We probably take a different approach to a lot of people. When we offer, it's serious. If we offer you and you com- mit, that very second we offer you, we should be doing backflips. We didn't offer and they left, and we just built a really strong relationship with his fam- ily. He's got an unbelievable support system, and we built really strong rela- tionships with all of them. Because this wasn't a decision that Brandon was making. You talk about being raised by a village, that's Brandon. That [linebacker] room has gotten competitive real quick. I mean, like re- ally competitive. It's obviously been competitive since we've been here, but I'm talking about a whole other level. ON MAKING SCHOLARSHIP OFFERS I don't know what the number is. I'll be- lieve the number you're throwing out there [193]. I think our numbers from everything I've seen are much smaller than a lot of programs that we recruit against. Say you're going to sign two quarter- backs. You're not going to offer three quarterbacks and get two, because the people we're recruiting against are good. They all have really good history, traditions, great fan base, facilities, all those types of things. It's hard. Our hit rate is pretty good, but you had better give yourself enough options. That's something that I think we've got to continue to do a good job of, and I think some positions do it better than others; sometimes I don't think our list is deep enough because, OK, you may think you're getting these two guys, but if you don't, now what? You can't go offer the next two. It's not like you can say, "Are you coming? I'm going to offer the next two." It doesn't work like that. I wish it were that simple. You have to say, who across the country can get good grades and be a good fit for us? After that, it's first come, first serve, and that's how scholarships are written. They understand that. ON RECRUITING PENNSYLVANIA You look at recruiting class rankings and you look at the schools that typically recruit at the highest level, and how many players they have within their own state, how many players they have within their own region, that factors in. Over the past couple of years we've had some challenges there. So being able to adapt and grow, I think, is really important. But I do think the region is really strong. And that's important. It really is important, because obviously the closer they are, the better chance you have to develop the type of rela- tionships that you need. So we're going to have to take advantage of that. And that is within a six-hour radius of cam- pus. We're excited about it. We've got a pretty good start on it. We've got to keep hammering. I think that's going to be the nature of our pro- gram moving forward. We've got to continue developing like crazy. But I also think, depending on how college football continues to evolve, we could be young. I also know there was a pro- gram a few years ago that lost a bunch of players to the NFL, had one of the youngest rosters in college football, and won a national championship. So, again, you love to have experi- ence. You would love to have those vet- erans on your roster, and we'll work like crazy to have those guys here, but you also have to embrace the situation you're in and focus on the positives and try to work as hard as you possibly can to eliminate some of the negatives and some of the weaknesses. But they're there. Everyone has them. But we're going to spend our time fo- cused on the positives and the strengths. ■ C L A S S O F 2 0 1 9

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