Blue White Illustrated

T here's no debate when it comes to which topic dominated the message board at BWI's website this year. That same topic – the pandemic – dom- inated just about everything in our lives, so it's understandable and expected. But like every other college football message board, recruiting wasn't far behind, and boy, just about everyone had an opinion on Penn State's recruiting class this year. With Penn State holding only 13 com- mitments throughout most of the fall, everyone wanted to know what went wrong. At one point, the class sunk to No. 38 in the Rivals Team Rankings. Well, I'm here to tell you that not much has really changed for the Nittany Lions. Sure, it wasn't a perfect year. But the Class of 2021 really isn't all that di=erent from its immediate predecessor. To understand why it ranked so low for the longest time, you have to understand how the rankings work. One thing most people don't know is that the 20 high- est-rated players in any given class are the only ones counted. With the major- ity of recruiting classes reaching that 20-person threshold, the Rivals.com system ensures that a class of 28 players won't necessarily rank higher than a class of 23 just because of volume. Rivals also has a bonus-point system for play- ers who rank within the Rivals250. Obvi- ously, a ;ve-star player from the top of the list will get you more points than, say, No. 243. Now that you know those two things, would you like to guess what this year's class, when averaged out with all the other classes above it, would rank on Ri- vals if Penn State had enough scholar- ships to sign 20 prospects? As of mid-December, it would have ranked 17th, just two spots below where the Lions ;nished last year. In fact, the aver- age points-per-player-committed in 2021 was 97.3 as of this writing, sub- stantially higher than last year's class, which was 80.1. Did people complain about the 2020 class? Sure, you'll always ;nd fans who expect better. But last year's complaints paled in comparison to the disenchant- ment we saw this year. Small recruiting classes aren't unique to Penn State, either. Just two years ago, Ohio State's 17-member class ranked 21st overall, and that group included ;ve-star defensive lineman Zach Harri- son. Just one year prior, Michigan ;n- ished 24th with 19 commitments. Even Clemson ;nished all the way down at No. 22 in 2017. I'm not saying this class is on par with the classes that the Buck- eyes and Tigers reeled in during those years. I am saying that small classes o>en look worse than they really are. It's a

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