Blue White Illustrated

| Mark Selders/ Penn State Athletic Communications JERSEY BOY John Donovan receives a warm welcome as he returns to his native Northeast to guide Penn State's o)ense or John Donovan, it's home, sweet home. Working just a few hours from his hometown of River Edge, N.J., he said his return to the Northeast has been "unbe- lievable," especially when he's walking the hallways of New Jersey high schools. Donovan recruited only a few prospects from the Garden State when he was at Vanderbilt the past three years. He recruited more during his previous stops at Maryland, Georgia Tech and Villanova, but since Donovan has be- come o>ensive coordinator at Penn State and reacquainted himself with the area's prep coaches, the Nittany Lions have either signed or received verbal commitments from nine New Jersey prospects. Donovan played a key role in many of those commitments. Let's just say that nowadays, when he returns home, he has a little more pull. "Popping into New Jersey again a@er a brief hiatus and seeing a lot of the coaches that you've seen before, they were so happy for me and they're so =red up to see me there," he said. "It was a neat reception. Most of them I had kept in touch with here and there, but I hadn't been able to get into schools in a while, so they were =red up for me. It was a neat feeling walking into the school wearing a Penn State logo. Not many guys get to do that. The fact that I was able to do that in New Jersey – it was pretty nice." He'll have a di>erent type of reception Sept. 13 when Penn State opens Big Ten play with a visit to Rutgers. While there is sure to be an abundance of PSU sup- port – "The ticket requests," Donovan laughed. "That's going to be di?cult" – it will still be enemy territory. And PSU's recent recruiting success in its neigh- boring state has made the rivalry a little bit more contentious. Which brings up another interesting dynamic. Rutgers' new o>ensive coordinator is Ralph Friedgen, a mentor of Donovan's since 1998. Initially, Donovan served as Friedgen's o>ensive graduate assistant when he was coordinator at Georgia Tech. Then Donovan followed Friedgen to Maryland in 2001 when he became head coach. The two have since gone their sep- arate ways, but Donovan said he has great respect for the coach who is now a rival. "I've learned a lot from him," Donovan said. "It's going to be weird seeing him on the other side, that's for sure. With how much I respect him and how much I've learned from him, I won't ever for- get that. So seeing him will be a little bit di>erent." At his previous stop, Donovan helped Vanderbilt put up some of the best of- fensive numbers in school history. The Commodores gained at least 4,400 total F

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