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and you have strong coaches who get it and understand why they made the de- cision in the first place, it helps. This is difficult. This can be challenging and stressful on young people. They're making a very important decision. You're hearing a lot of different things from a lot of different people. So Miles and his mom were awesome. Every time we would go visit them, like I said, it was a celebration. It wasn't re- cruiting. We didn't really recruit Miles for the last six months. It was just going and having fun with him. And we're talking about Miles right now, but I would say that for a good portion of our recruits, it was going in and spending time with the families and having fun and laughing and enjoying ourselves. We weren't really selling Penn State be- cause they were already sold. Over the years, have you had many recruits who show up to every home game like Connor McGovern? And how much does him coming in early help him to have an opportunity to crack that two-deep the first year? I think Connor's another example. We were talking about Miles. I think Con- nor is another good example. His mom and dad are unbelievable. His dad is the superintendent of the high schools [at Lake-Lehman]. They've been great. He made a decision. He was very thorough, like most of our guys are on the front end, asking the tough questions, doing all the research. Then he made a deci- sion and never wavered, never wavered one bit. Again, even when Coach [Matt] Limegrover came in, I think his home visit there was four hours. It was not four hours of recruiting. It was four hours of eating sausage and kielbasa and laughing, and pizza, the squares from Old Forge, and just kind of really enjoying yourself. He's kind of unusual because typically centers are usually a little shorter. You can get away with centers [who are] 6-1, 6-2. I think the ideal if you look at the NFL is 6-3. That's what they're looking for. He's a 6-4, almost 6-5 center. He's 312 pounds right now. He's still baby- faced. He can run. He can jump. He came to our camp and tested unbeliev- ably well. We try to get guys to get on board with us, and then we still want them to come to camp and compete and develop a re- lationship, a working relationship with our coach, how he coaches, what the drills are going to be and things like that. And he came to camp and tested even better than we anticipated him testing, his running, his jumping, all of his numbers. Then the fact that he graduated early and is on campus is going to give him a chance. It's hard to play on the O-line as a freshman. But the fact that he's here six months early and he's already a big, physical, strong guy and very, very intelligent gives him a shot. So he's a unique guy. Great family. He was very emotional today. His dad came up for the signing day celebration. He was in the war room with us, and he was able to announce his son. So he got up behind the podium and announced his son and he got emo- tional as his dad introducing his son coming to Penn State. So to me, that's what it's all about. If you're a Pennsylvania kid and you've got a chance to play at the state school and stay home and get all the things you're looking for, it's a pretty unique opportunity. It really is. Their family realized that early on. I only saw one recruit from the Delaware Valley/South Jersey area, which seems unusual to me. What are the factors that contribute to that? There are a lot of different things that go into it. We look at different positions, and certain positions are really strong in our region, other positions may not be strong in our region that year. That's why we say, OK, we need to know that because, say it's a long snapper and there are no long snappers in the region. We've got to identify long snappers na- tionally. So some of it is that. You look at certain areas, and they had some great players but they didn't fill a need that we were looking to fill this year. Some of those battles we won, some of those battles we didn't. And that's across the board in college foot- ball. You look at our last two years and we've done a significant job in recruit- ing those areas. But you're going to have that. You're going to have years where you're strong, and you're going to have years where you don't get as many, and that's going to be for a number of rea- sons. That's going to be need. That's going to be fit on both sides, our fit compared to their fit. Penn State isn't yet a Top 25 team on the field, but for the past two seasons you've had top-15, top-20 classes in recruiting. And you've had guys who have picked Penn State over the likes of Ohio State and Alabama. Why do you think those guys have been so re- ceptive to Penn State and your staff? And how close do you think because of these two groups Penn State is to cracking the Top 25 on the field? That's a great question. If you look at the programs across the country that are consistently successful, they have a roster full of those guys. They have five recruiting classes like that. Are there some exceptions to those rules? Yes. But not many. So I think [it has to do with the] com- bination of our coaching staff and this university and what it stands for and what it's all about, our history and our traditions, the pride in this place, and our players. I think our players are prob- ably our greatest asset. I've been to a lot of schools where you do a player panel on an unofficial or official visit, and if that recruit has been there five times, it's the same five guys up there. And I hear parents aBerwards talk about how every time they come [to Penn State], there is a different player up there, and how ar- ticulate they are and how thoughtful they are and how they handle them- selves and how they present themselves. So we just have so many positive things to sell. Are there other schools that we're competing against that also have posi- tive things to sell? No doubt about it. But I think what everybody is looking for is a fit. We're looking for the right type of kid who makes sense at Penn State. The recruits are looking for the right type of fit with the university and coaching staff as well. And when those stars align, you've got a chance to bring F E B R U A R Y 4 , 2 0 1 6 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 12 FRANKLIN CONTINUED FROM 11

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