Penn State Football Recruiting Roundup: September 29, 2016
By Marty Leap
Welcome back to our weekly look at all things Penn State football recruiting here at Victory Bell Rings with the weekly recruiting roundup.
After the first month of the 2016 season the Penn State Nittany Lions find themselves with a 2-2 record. The team has shown improvement on offense. And entering the season this was very important.
Through four games the Nittany Lions’ points per game average is up 10 points over last season. Furthermore, Penn State is one dropped pass by DaeSean Hamilton away from being 3-1. Ultimately, what matters is winning football games. The Nittany Lions have shown improvement this season, but it is important that they start to win more games.
That begins with this weekend’s match up with Minnesota. The Nittany Lions will welcome the 3-0 Golden Gophers to Beaver Stadium on Saturday for a 3:30 kickoff. Penn State enters the game as a three-point favorite. In my opinion, this is a must win game for James Franklin and the Nittany Lions.
*Warning — this weeks recruiting roundup is not a fun one, brace yourself*
Commits Visiting Elsewhere
Unfortunately, this is part of college football recruiting. You are going to have commits visit other schools. When this happens it is up to the coaching staff to keep that commit on board and remind them why they committed to your school in the first place.
Last weekend, five-star class of 2018 defensive end Micah Parsons visited Tennessee. Parsons is one of the top five recruits in the country in the 2018 recruiting class and will take other visits. Over the summer he visited USC and will visit Florida State later this fall.
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Parsons taking visits should not surprise anyone. When he committed back in February everyone knew he would be taking visits. At that point, other than Penn State, the only schools he had visited were Rutgers and Michigan.
In order for Penn State to keep Parsons on board, in my opinion, it is simple. Win football games. If Penn State can win 8+ games this year and then build on that in 2017 I believe they will be okay here.
This Saturday, linebacker commit Brelin Faison-Walden will visit Michigan. Faison-Walden is an extremely important recruit for Penn State. The Nittany Lions are very thin at linebacker and Faison-Walden can play right away as a true freshman next fall. Not only does he have a skill set that would allow this, but he is also enrolling early in January.
Right now there seems to be some debate if Faison-Walden is a take for Michigan or not. If he is, things could get very bad here for the Nittany Lions, and fast.
Finally, I warned you it’s bad.
There is most likely a de-commitment coming Saturday. I can’t go into details since the news is only on VIP sites at the moment. However, the Nittany Lions will most likely suffer a de-commitment from a player on Saturday. So, a win to offset this would be wonderful.
Checking In With Ricky Slade
Five-star class of 2018 running back Ricky Slade recently did an interview with Ryan Bartow of 247 Sports. Fortunately, what Slade told Bartow will make Nittany Lion fans very happy. It has long been known that Slade is high on the Nittany Lions, but just how high is he?
Slade told Bartow that Penn State, Florida, and Virginia Tech are all currently tied for his top school. He also said that Penn State running back coach Charles Huff is his favorite coach out of all the coaches who are recruiting him. You can read the full article here.
He visited Penn State twice over the summer and will return to Happy Valley for the Whiteout Game against Ohio State next month. The Nittany Lions just need to keep getting Slade on campus and making a good impression with him. Because right now they have as good a shot as anyone at landing the five-star back.
Penn State Makes The Cut
Three-star defensive tackle Dalyn Wade-Perry recently released a top six. And, not surprisingly, the Nittany Lions made the cut.
Not much has changed on the Wade-Perry front, because he continues to wait to find out if he will get accepted into Stanford or not. If he does he will commit to the Cardinal. However, if this does not happen I believe he will end up a Nittany Lion.
I look for Wade-Perry to take an official visit to Penn State some time this fall. Possibly for the Whiteout Game against Ohio State in October.
That will do it for this week. As I said above, this week’s edition of the recruiting roundup is not the best for Penn State fans. Hopefully, this will change in the coming weeks. If this is going to ultimately change though, the Nittany Lions have to start winning more football games. Therefore, this Saturday’s game against Minnesota is very important.