Blue White Illustrated

LAST WORD TIM OWEN | OWEN.TIM.BWI@ G M A I L . C O M Southern hospitality N o sunny beaches. No West Coast cuisine. No swag bag of iPads, sunglasses and studiograde headphones. It's bowl season, and as you scroll through the listings for the holiday season – starting with the Rose Bowl, all the way down to the AdvoCare V100 – the Nittany Lions are nowhere to be found. But that doesn't mean Penn State won't be heading south this winter. As Minnesota preps for the worldrenown Meineke Car Care of Texas Bowl and Michigan State gears up for the oh-so-delicious Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, Penn State turns its focus to the 2013 season and beyond. No, the Nittany Lions don't get the luxury of an additional 15 pre-bowl practices, and as a team they won't be spending Christmas in a sunny locale. But the staff is getting a head start on building the program's future. When Bill O'Brien and his largely Southern-bred coaching staff began assembling the building blocks of Penn State's future last winter, they looked to regions south of the Mason-Dixon Line, which are a bit warmer than Centre County around this time of year. Some of the coaches – Ted Roof, Mac McWhorter and Stan Hixon, namely – will be touring the Southeast this winter to build relationships with prospects and their coaches in the most fertile recruiting territory in the country. According to Rivals.com, 65 of the nation's top 100 high school prospects come from Southeastern states and the Maryland/Virginia/ Washington, D.C. area – regions that Penn State's assistants have been combing since they were hired a year ago. The depth of talent in those states cannot be quantified. So far, the dividends are clear. With the addition of linebacker Jonathan Walton of Alabama and athlete DaeSean Hamilton of Virginia on Dec. 9, Penn State's Class of 2013 has nine members who played their high school football south of the MasonDixon Line. Then throw in quarterback Tyler Ferguson. He's a California juco prospect from the College of the Sequoias near Fresno. Sounds like a neat place to spend bowl season, doesn't it? During the past decade and possibly longer, Penn State has never hauled in 10 Southern recruits in a single class. And the Lions still could add Deondre Singleton of Lawrenceville, Ga., which would bring the total to at least 11. The last time Penn State recruited even nine Southern prospects was in 2009, and seven of those players came from Maryland – not exactly the heart of Dixie. This staff is hauling in recruits from places where Penn State rarely ventured in the past. Two recruits in this year's class hail from Alabama, a state that hadn't given the Nittany Lions a player in more than 10 years. And the Lions are also turning up in Georgia, too. Quarterback Steven Bench was a last-minute pickup during the 2012 recruiting cycle, and if Singleton were to pick Penn State, he would be the third Georgian to join the team during O'Brien's tenure. The staff also is building a strong relationship with four-star defensive end Bryson Allen-Williams of Ellenwood, one of the top recruits in the nation for the 2014 cycle. It's quite a change, considering that Jordan Lyons, a littleused tight end from the 2004 class, was the last Georgia recruit to choose Penn State. So they're not going bowling, but Penn State's coaches have been roaming the South. Their bowl games will take place in Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. They will earn their victories in living rooms and high school coaches' offices and over the telephone. Considering that the heart of recruiting season overlaps with the heart of winter in State College, it works out nicely that the country's best prospects happen to live in the balmy Southeast. Who needs a bowl trip? If the staff continues to have success on the recruiting trail, not only will it bode well for Penn State's longterm future, but it will improve public perception, as well. Without a bowl game to keep them in the news cycle, the Nittany Lions need to find other ways to stay relevant until spring practice rolls around. They did just that in landing Hamilton's commitment. All reports indicated he was leaning toward Virginia Tech. His coach is a Virginia Tech guy, and his athletic director is, too. Heck, even Mountain View's uniforms look like the Hokies' unis. But Penn State defied the odds, and in so doing kept itself in the news. "It's all about winning," Rivals' national recruiting analyst Mike Farrell told Blue White Illustrated. "It's all about what you've done lately. The landscape is ridiculously fickle right now." Maybe future headlines will come from the recruiting trail or from award galas, or maybe there will be a surprise announcement that Penn State is scheduling a game in Ireland or Hawaii or on the moon. In the coming weeks, O'Brien will strive to build on the momentum Penn State established during the 2012 season. Even if it's not in the Orange Bowl or the storied GoDaddy.com Bowl in Ladd-Peebles Stadium, he and his assistants will do their best to keep winning.

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