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FOOTBALL Nittany Lion quintet headed to NFL Combine Five Penn State football players – quar- terback Christian Hackenberg, safety Jor- dan Lucas, defensive end Carl Nassib, and defensive tackles Austin Johnson and An- thony Zettel – have been invited to par- ticipate in the NFL Scouting Combine, the third-highest total in the Big Ten. The combine is set for Feb. 23-29 at Lu- cas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and will air on the NFL Network and NFL.com. Penn State has had five players invited to the combine in each of the past two years. The workout schedule is as follows: running backs, offensive linemen and special teams players on Friday, Feb. 26; quarterbacks, wide receivers and tight ends on Saturday, Feb. 27; defensive line- men and linebackers on Sunday, Feb. 28 and defensive backs on Monday, Feb. 29. Hackenberg started all 38 games of his career and left Penn State ranked first in school history in career passing yards (8,457), touchdowns (48), attempts (1,235) and completions (693). Johnson ranked third among defensive tackles in the Football Bowl Subdivision with 78 total stops last season. He also had 6.5 sacks and 15 tackles for loss. Lucas, despite missing Penn State's last three games with an undisclosed in- jury, was sixth on the team in tackles with 56, including 2.5 tackles for loss. Nassib had a breakout senior season in which he became a consensus All- American and won the Lombardi and Ted Hendricks awards. Zettel collected the second All-Big Ten honor of his career after making the first team last season. He was seventh on the team with 47 tackles, third in sacks (four) and fourth in tackles for loss (11). ■ There were a few bright spots, but for the most part I believe that our defen- sive haul was middle of the road. Actu- ally, it was quite disappointing to me. We needed the offensive help and got it. If the offense improves significantly, then our defense will be good enough. However, there are some defensive bright spots on our 2017 targets. I hate to repeat the mantra, but winning puts [fans] in the seats and recruits on the shelf! tiger outlaw I hated to see Karamo [Dioubate] go because I'm not sure he was replaced. As far as Dwumfour, I think Shelton re- placed him, and for what it's worth, I'd give the edge to Shelton. LOVE that kid's motor. SJLuvsLions I'm not sure that our DT class should drop after the decommits. Jordan and Shelton are solid younger prospects. Chavis will probably turn out to be a very solid rotation player right away, and Thrift can make a contribution this year. We have a solid DE class, although I think Toney will not end up at DE unless he packs on 40 pounds. My biggest dis- agreements are at linebacker and safety. Even if Toney becomes a 'backer, I'm not sure that we came anywhere close to our needs here. njlion Did we miss on some? Yes. Do we need to do better on defense next year? Yes. There will be four-star kids who don't pan out everywhere. We did get three- star kids. There will also be two-star kids who exceed expectations. We'll see in two years. PSUDave Diamonds-in-the-rough are great, and I'm sure there will be one who emerges in this class or the last two classes. But buying into that strategy long-term will simply bury your pro- gram. There's a reason that Alabama is always a national championship con- tender, and it isn't because they are banking on coaching up two- and three- stars. kjb32812 I think the offense this year will be MUCH different and I believe the tight end will have a much greater chance to make an impact. Dalton is a kid who may end up being one of our most important recruits down the road, as I really believe he has very high-end potential at the tight end position. PSUJim Good class on offense. We could have improved with a fast wide receiver to stretch the field, though. Big, tall WRs are the thing in the NFL now, but a guy who gives defensive backs fright because of his speed, a guy like Polk or maybe Thompkins, would have been a great add. PSUinCAfan I think sometimes our expectations get the best of us. We get ourselves all lathered up over certain players (we think we just have to get), then when they go somewhere else, the loss gets factored into our thinking to the extent that we don't really take a hard look at what we actually got. Disappointment is a tough pill to take – I don't care how mature your thinking. At least in the defensive line, the more I think about it, the better it is starting to look to me. If Chavis [does well academically] and is half as good as his JC coach suggests, we might be further ahead in 2016 than with Dwumfour (although I really rue his getting away), or Colon, or whomever. Lion10 In my opinion, the 2016 class is solid- to-good no matter what angle you want to look at it from. If you use the class rankings across the board, this is proba- bly a top-20 class. Not great but defi- nitely solid. If you want to look deeper, we bring in a very good OL group, which is a position of great need. We get an elite RB. I understand some of the frus- trations and I have my fair share. I do think that we did not finish strong. However, there are many reasons for that, lack of effort not being one of them. From now on, the key to elite re- cruiting is to win games and champi- onships. I truly believe that Franklin has some room to grow. So do all of the coaches. The honeymoon is over. He has to show it on the field. The program is definitely trending upwards. I am going to enjoy the ride. PSUChina S I T E L I N E S • B W I . R I V A L S . C O M R E A D E R S A S S E S S P S U ' S R E C R U I T I N G C L A S S

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