Blue White Illustrated

T H E C L A S S O F 2 0 1 8 >> He will start spring practice playing at the Mike linebacker spot, but there's no doubting that his skill set provides Penn State with positional :exibility. The additions of Parsons and Shorter have already provided Penn State with something else, something the program hasn't boasted in more than a decade: a recruiting class with two 9ve-star play- ers. Prior to the recently concluded re- cruiting cycle, Penn State hadn't brought in two 9ve-star players in the same year since 2005. That's when Der- rick Williams and Justin King commit- ted to Joe Paterno, headlining a class that 9nished No. 25 in the country and helped recharge a program that had fallen on hard times in the early 2000s. The Class of 2005 didn't rank nearly as high as the No. 5 group that Franklin just signed, but King, from Gateway High in Monroeville, Pa., and Williams, from Eleanor Roosevelt High in subur- ban Washington, D.C., created a wave that Penn State rode the following year. The Class of 2006 ranked sixth in the nation and was the program's best until this year's group signed its letters of in- tent. But no matter what the 9nal ranking of the class as a whole, 9ve-star prospects get people's attention. With players like Parsons and Williams, it's hard to ignore the noise even if you want to. And the attention they generate is not just re- gional but national. It was Parsons' commitment, followed by his departure and eventual return, that created much of the stir around Penn State's most recent class – and has Franklin joking that he may want a Par- sons-focused book deal a>er his retire- ment. Urban Meyer might want one, too. Along the way, there were visits to many other schools, but Ohio State was of particular interest. There was a dog named Brutus, there were tweets about the Buckeyes' starting quarterback that may have ru=ed a few feathers in Columbus, and there were alleged re- cruiting violations. If that's only a pre- view, it's 9t for the big screen. Williams came to prominence during changing times. Rivals had only begun ranking prospects in 2002 and was still in its infancy, as the market for online recruiting news and rankings was just starting its ascent. "Derrick Williams was a household name in recruiting coming out of high school," wrote Mike Farrell, Rivals' na- tional recruiting director. "[He was] our No. 1 player in the country in 2005 and the target of an all-out recruiting battle between numerous schools." Like Parsons, Williams had o;ers from near and far. "I don't even remember how many of- fers I ended up with," Williams said in a 2014 interview. "It was probably more than 50 or 60. I could have gone wher- Penn State approached the early signing period the way most schools did, James Franklin said on Feb. 7. The Nittany Lions viewed the newly cre- ated December signing period as the point in the recruiting calendar when most prospects were going to sign, leaving only a few vacancies to be 9lled in February. "If you look across the country, I think the number was pretty high, like 85 percent of the prospects signed in the 9rst signing period," he said. "I think that's how it's going to be. … We really didn't have a whole lot of ques- tion marks out there. We really only were hoping and waiting for one sig- nature today. That's what we were ex- pecting, and it worked out that way. So we feel really good about that." Franklin added that he has some reservations about a related change that will allow prospects to take o<- cial visits in the spring before their senior years rather than waiting until the fall or winter. "I get it and I un- derstand why, and I think you can re- ally make an argument, being in Big Ten country, that being able to bring guys here when the campus is warm and there are :owers and all those wonderful things [is bene9cial]," he said. "But I also want to make sure that we're able to spend enough time with our current players and develop them and then also be able to spend time with our own families. I get the early visits. I wish the window was a little bit smaller. I just worry about how that's all going to play out." This isn't the 9rst time that Franklin has expressed these concerns, and I see his point. The change probably isn't going to help Penn State much, and he knows that. Over the years, the Lions haven't had many problems getting their top prospects on campus for spring practice or the Blue-White Game, even without PSU picking up the tab. Under the new rule, prospects might choose to take o

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