Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/787374
LAST WORD T I M O W E N | O W E N . T I M . B W I @ G M A I L . C O M s with most great accomplishments in life, the groundwork had been laid long before. Penn State's 2017 signing class fin- ished as the best yet under head coach James Franklin, and that was no acci- dent. Even 11 wins, a Big Ten title and the remarkable run to a Rose Bowl berth had only a marginal impact on the final result. The preparation for this class, which finished No. 12 in the nation ac- cording to Rivals.com, had been started long before. Relationships had been de- veloping for more than three years, and the coaching staff had been scouting potential targets just as their high school careers were beginning. And therein lies one main difference between a class that finished full-steam ahead toward the Feb. 1 finish line, and one that might have had to row up- stream those final few weeks, plugging holes as favorite prospects leaked away. This was a long time coming, hours of evaluations and even more time spent building trust. And in most cases, it all started on a hot turf field in the sum- mer, as coaches sorted through hun- dreds of prospects before paring the list down to a select group. For the Nittany Lions' staff, it paid off in spades. Franklin has put significant emphasis on the elite skills and satellite camps held throughout the summer. The camps provide a glimpse of the staff's top targets, one that can be more reveal- ing than game film and highlight reels. With the Class of 2017, especially, the approach returned dividends, and as the Class of 2018 rapidly comes together, the benefits appear to be ongoing. The newest band of signees – and next year's, too – shows the important role that in-person interactions play in landing key prospects. Offensive lineman Des Holmes is just one example of someone whose camp attendance helped lead him to a spot at PSU. In comparison to many of his fu- ture classmates, Holmes was a relative late-riser on the recruiting scene. It wasn't until the spring of his junior year that he began to collect FBS offers, and the Nittany Lions held off until he camped twice. He worked out for the coaches before his junior season, but it was a return trip in July 2016 that ulti- mately did the trick. Based on those in-person evaluations, in which he was able to show firsthand his growth and development, he earned a scholarship offer. Holmes then an- nounced his commitment in August. "When you watch his tape, he finishes plays," offensive recruiting coordinator Josh Gattis said. "He's probably the biggest offensive lineman that we have in this class. Moves extremely well. Comes from a great high school program. Really a great kid. Always has a smile." And it was those camp visits that helped Gattis fully recognize not just Holmes' on-field talents but those off- field attributes as well. The approach doesn't only pertain to Holmes. "Actually, every one of our of- fensive prospects that we signed in this class had come to camp," Gattis said, "so we know a lot about these young men." Whether those appearances were at a satellite camp or on PSU's campus, Gattis got to see with his own eyes each offen- sive prospect in action before their sign- ing. That wasn't a luxury he had initially. In Gattis's three-man wide receiver group, he had the opportunity to learn what type of players (and people) would soon be joining his meeting room. He first saw Mac Hippenhammer on the campus of Bowling Green in June before his senior year, and K.J. Hamler was at PSU for an elite skills camp the year be- fore. Both performances were enough to warrant an offer shortly after, but not before. Cameron Sullivan-Brown was the first receiver to commit to Penn State's Class of 2017, and he twice camped for the coaches and made cer- tain that his presence was known. "He was really confident. I mean, he was really confident," Franklin said, re- calling Sullivan-Brown's camp per- formance. "He was taking almost every rep and winning and then turning around and telling Coach Gattis about it, almost to an extreme." Sullivan-Brown's aggressiveness in an ordinary camp drill reveled a personal- ity trait that the coaches prized, and one they might not have fully appreciated without the in-person interactions. Different circumstances along with present scholarship availability pre- vented some of the defensive signees from attending camp. But most of them did, and for those players it was of par- ticular value. "It's always good to see exactly who they are – whether they're coachable, whether they move the way you want them to move, and [to meas- ure] their dimensions, to make sure their dimensions are exactly what you think they are," defensive recruiting co- ordinator Terry Smith said. "If you can get those guys at camp, that's awesome, but it's not a necessity." Getting a proper evaluation of the prospects – testing their speed and ex- plosiveness, checking heights and weights, identifying key areas of their skill sets along with personality traits – is a perk that the coaches hadn't always been afforded previously. Going forward, though, it appears to be sticking around. Owner of Rivals' top-ranked 2018 class, PSU had 11 verbally committed prospects as of mid-February. Its total was five more than any other team in the country, and guess what? Coaches had seen almost all of them in camp al- ready at least once. ■ Seeing is believing A