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thing in between. I do want to thank Sean Clifford and Yetur Matos, and all those guys who jumped onboard with us really early in the process. They saw something in us very clear that maybe others didn't. It's really cool that we were able to reinforce that they made a great decision with how we played. I read a bunch of inter- views with Sean talking about he wasn't surprised one bit. He saw this coming the whole time. His family was really, really good. You talk about him having a storybook year, as well. Bunch of in- juries on his high school team. They end up being 5-5, but he took his team to four straight championships. That guy is a winner. Tommy Stevens, Jake Zem- biec – we're starting to get winners stockpiled at that position, every posi- tion. That's one of the things we didn't have when we got here, depth and com- petition at every position. That's going to make for an exciting spring. That's going to make for an exciting fall. I'm really looking forward to it. That expe- rience that we got this year, then creat- ing the most competitive environment in the country at practice every day. With some of the early commit- ments, how important were those guys in terms of establishing leader- ship and getting the later commits onboard? Who were some of the spe- cific players who emerged as leaders early on in the cycle? What have you seen from them as a coach, those leadership qualities? I think obviously the guys who jumped onboard were really good. They had a group chat going. They all became really good friends. That recruiting weekend we had a couple weekends ago, it's not a recruiting weekend, it's a celebration. They come. They're all buddies. They're all friends. They just enjoy themselves. Their parents know each other. The players know each other, the coaches, and our families. It's just kind of a weekend to celebrate and answer any last questions they may have and go through everything for the third or fourth time in detail. But it's special. Those guys who jumped onboard, they were very active. It's one thing for it to come from an area recruiting coach. It's another thing for it to come from a position coach or head coach. It's a complete different thing when these guys are out recruiting each other. To be honest with you, it's not just telling guys to come here. It's also telling us, "Hey, Coach, I don't know if this is a guy I necessarily want to play with." Our current players telling us that, recruits telling us that, "Coach, he's not a great fit for us, doesn't fit the culture." Those guys are significant. They always will be. You've obviously assembled a pretty strong class here. Is there any area of your depth chart that you would have liked to have fortified a little bit more that you weren't able to with this group? I think we're in a little bit of a different point now. When I first got here [and PSU had] 65, 75 scholarships, that was a major issue. We're in a little bit different situation now. I still think we're going to be recruiting guys to come in and play as freshmen. But in the past, we had guys coming in and they walked in and they were in the two-deep, where now it's going to be iron sharpens iron. It's going to be walk on campus and compete like crazy. We're going to play freshmen. That's something that we're committed to doing. We're going to play the best players, whether they're fresh- men, seniors, returning starters or not. We're going to play the best guys. Needs? We're just in a different place. I think we're going to go back and kind of look through some things that we've already identified at this point. It's not like we have glaring holes now like we did before. I think we've done a really good job of solving problems. I think getting Corey Bolds late in the process was important. We had a couple of de- fensive tackles transfer out. Got a little bit of a hole in one of the classes. I would prefer at every position to sign at least one player every single year so you don't have gaps in development in your program, but that never really happens. You try the best you possibly can, but that's going to happen from time to time. There are two western Pa. guys I am curious about: C.J. Thorpe and Jour- ney Brown. C.J. you had to fight for a little bit at the end. Journey is a guy you offered and added. Where do you see Thorpe fitting in in year one? What attributes does Brown have? Thorpe is a grown man. He's got something that I think most coaches are looking for. It's hard to find. He's an of- fensive lineman with a nastiness to him. He plays with a really nasty demeanor. He wants to finish it. He wants to be physical. When you can find guys like that, they're really valuable. If you look really at this entire offensive line re- cruiting class, they all show that. He was able to do that in one of the better, more competitive high school confer- ences in the country, the WPIAL, and specifically with Coach [Terry] Totten over there at Central Catholic, then he was able to go to an all-star game and jump out again. He's got really long arms. He's over 300 pounds. His dad played here. I know you say we had to fight for him at the end. I don't know if that necessarily was the case. He did look around a little bit, but we didn't feel that [he was in danger of decom- mitting] from things that were commu- nicated with us. Then Journey is a great story. You don't really see it a whole lot now. Guys usually have offers at the latest by their junior year. He's a guy obviously who has done some really special things in his career. When he came to camp, kind of things changed for us. We saw him on tape. He did a great job at Meadville. [He rushed] for over 700 yards and 10 touchdowns in one game. When I offered him and he committed, I said, "We've got one deal here. For this to work, you have to prom- ise me you're going to rush for 700 yards and 10 touchdowns in one game at Penn State." He guaranteed me that's going to happen. When he came to camp, it changed. He broad jumped over 10 feet. His pro agility was really good. He ran 4.4 on about 10 clocks multiple times. He's 5- 10, 190 pounds at least. He's not just one of these little speed backs. He's going to be over 200 pounds and he's going to be able to run. He was a guy at that point who we were trying to find a way to get into the F E B R U A R Y 2 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 11

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