Penn State Recruiting: Jake Kiley is #13

Jake Kiley (6’1 175 DB from NH) committed to Penn State today after receiving his offer yesterday.  For the most part, fans hate aren’t loving this offer.  Kiley only had a schollie from New Hampshire, but was getting interest from UConn, Duke, and Boston College.

Offers: New Hampshire

Strengths

• Good tackler
• Decent speed, looks quick
• Good size, room to add weight

Weaknesses

• Plays in New Hampshire…not top tier competition
• Lack of offers, PSU being his only D1 offer
• Not overly athletic, just very average in almost every stage

I hate to harp on the kid, but just a confusing offer.  At the same time, I understand the offer.  He is a DB, and Penn State sure does need some DBs.  Other DB recruits?  Reeves, Cox, Tyson, and Golden.  So it isn’t like Penn State was swimming in gold with these DBs.  The other guys that may have been looked at?  Marchez Coates and/or Michael Westray so there wasn’t too much there.  Kiley could come and fit into our scheme fine, which it really doesn’t take much of an athlete to be average in our scheme.  Hopefully, Kiley does prove everyone wrong, as I’m sure he’s reading the message boards.  Bottom line is no one cares about stars when you get on the field…that’s where you prove your worth.  As a side note, I’m guessing this affects none of the other DB situations.  Penn State definitely could use 5 DBs so we’ll see as we move along.

This gives Penn State 13 commits now, and here are the prospects Penn State is looking at…

• Noah Spence
• Armani Reeves
• Eugene Lewis
• 2 of William Mahone/Akeel Lynch/Matt Smith (More on him in the next article)
• 1 of Kent Taylor/Canaan Severin (Will address this in the next article)
• Devin Fuller
• Demetrious Cox
• 2 of Jarron Jones/Tommy Schutt/Jamil Pollard/Faith Ekakitie
• Mike Tyson
• Malik Golden

So, Penn State will probably be taking around 21-23 this class.  But numbers are tight, and I’m just not getting this offer to Kiley when you could have waited until January when things were a bit more clearer.

Although this class isn’t as strong as it once looked like it would of been, landing some of the big time prospects will be key down the stretch.  Recruiting is like a roller coaster, some ups and downs.  Penn State started with an up, but now are going through a down period…it’s just important that they bounce back.

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