Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/260491
here will come a time, no doubt, when Penn State will simply go out and recruit a batch of talented high school football players and those players will make verbal com- mitments and sign letters of intent and eventually show up on campus, and there won't be any existential melo- drama to throw everything in doubt midway through the process. You know, like the good old days. That time, as Penn State fans well know, hasn't arrived just yet. For the third year in a row, the Nittany Lions' recruiting e1orts were impacted by a sudden crisis that plunged the program into turmoil. In 2012, it was the tumultuous end of the Paterno era that caused a number of key recruits to 0ee. Then came the imposition of major NCAA sanctions later that same year, a development that forced Bill O'Brien and his sta1 to scramble just to hold the Class of 2013 together. And then, in the past few weeks, came a period of uncertainty in between O'Brien's departure and the appointment of James Franklin as his successor – the team's /2h head coach since October 2011 if you count interim coaches Tom Bradley and Larry Johnson. The good news for Penn State is that the shockwaves seem to be getting a little bit less violent with each passing year, the seismology a little bit more comprehensible. From a recruiting perspective, the transition from O'Brien to Franklin went about as smoothly as could be expected under the circumstances. The Nittany Lions did lose three committed prospects in defensive tackle Thomas Holley, linebacker Donte Raymond and cornerback Troy Vincent Jr., but Franklin quickly counterbalanced those losses with verbal commitments from /ve members of the recruiting class he had been assembling at Van- derbilt: o1ensive linemen Chance Sorrell and Brendan Brosnan, In welcoming 25 signees, the Nittany Lions improve their speed and size T MARCUS ALLEN MICHAEL O'CONNOR TROY REEDER DAQUAN WORLEY MIKE GESICKI