Blue White Illustrated

believe, especially when it comes to social media. "Christian and I each have like 7,000 Twitter followers, which is pretty crazy," said Breneman, a tight end from Camp Hill, Pa. "We're both still in high school and we have more people following us than some of the best players in all of college football. I get some crazy stuff from people, though. I get a few a day that are really just pretty immature. One of the worst ones that I'll never forget and really bothered me was from some guy telling me that he'll never support me because I support child abuse. "It's been tough, because the youth in me wants to tweet back and tell some 40-year-old man how immature he looks, but if I've learned anything, it's just to be the mature one and take the high road." It isn't just the media pressure that has made things difficult, however, as recruiting in general has changed dra- matically over the years. While verbal commitments have always been infor- mal until signing day, the fact that so many prospects are making multiple commitments before actually signing has forced schools to stay in touch to the very end with every prospect who has shown even the slightest amount of interest. That's been especially true of Hackenberg, a quarterback for Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy, but things have cooled a bit in recent weeks. "A couple months ago, when every- thing was kind of turned upside down, everybody was jumping and holding their hand up," Fork Union coach Micky Sullivan said. "I think now, most schools are waiting to see some things. But in this world, for most youngsters, their word doesn't matter. A verbal commit- ment has become just a way to hold a spot until you find something better, and I think a lot of recruiters have ap- proached it like that. "Now here, there definitely haven't been as many phone calls as I got early on. With that said, if I called a few schools tonight and said Christian wants to change his mind and look around, they'd say that he has a spot, so things right now aren't as active as they were, but schools are still there and this won't really stop until he signs the piece of paper. That's no fault of Christian – he's still 100 percent com- mitted to Penn State – it's just the way recruiting works these days." Hackenberg and Breneman may be getting most of the attention, but there are six additional prospects – Garrett Sickels, Brendan Mahon, Curtis Cothran, Neiko Robinson, Andrew Nel- son and Brandon Bell – who likewise haven't wavered since the Freeh report was released in July. Factor in more recent additions Jordan Smith, Kasey Gaines and Tanner Hartman, and Penn State's recruiting class continues to impress the majority of national re- cruiting experts, all of whom are picking up on the fact that Bill O'Brien knows the right things to say when it comes to building an elite college program. "This is a place where you can play great football with great kids as team- mates and get a fantastic degree," O'Brien said at his Oct. 2 news confer- ence. "You can play in front of 100,000 people. You can play on national TV. You can play where you're going to be [seen] at practice. Every NFL team has been in here to scout our players already this year. So you're going to have exposure to that. You are going to play for a coaching staff that has NFL experience, national championship experience." With Breneman set to enroll in Jan- uary, Christmas can't get here quick enough for the nation's second-ranked tight end. Hackenberg will have an extra month to deal with the recruiting process, as he won't be able to sign a letter of intent until Feb. 6. But as he's done throughout the past few months, he intends to use his recruiting experience as an opportunity for per- sonal growth. "I think all of this will definitely help me in the next four or five years up there," he said. "You're not always going to have a great game, so just dealing with the media now will help me down the road when things get tough. At the end of the day, though, I'm going up there to get an education and then play football, and that's the most important thing. That's where all my focus will be." T Hartman: 'I'm really excited about Penn State' anner Hartman became the latest player to join Penn State's Class of 2013 when he switched his verbal commit- ment from Maryland on Sept. 25. An offensive lineman at Liberty Christian Academy in Lynchburg, Va., he may have only earned a two-star rating from Rivals.com, but Hart- man comes from a football-playing family. His father, Tom Hartman, was an offensive lineman for Vir- ginia Tech in the early 1980s. Blue White Illustrated's Ryan Snyder caught up with Tanner Hartman to learn what prompted him to choose the Lions. Q&A How difficult was the decision to switch schools? How long did it take you to decide Penn State was the right choice? Penn State was the school I real- ly wanted to go to, the school I re- ally wanted to play at. I went to camp there this summer, and at the time they had the commits they had, so there wasn't really any room for me. When everything else developed and they had some room, I got that offer and I knew this was the place I wanted to go. Being committed to Maryland at the time, I was planning on taking visits to both Maryland and Penn State, but you know, I just really felt that this was a great opportu- nity for me. This is where my SEE HARTMAN NEXT PAGE

• Cover