Penn State football recruiting roundup: all-star game updates, Jayson Oweh set to commit

Welcome back to the weekly look at all things Penn State football recruiting here at Victory Bell Rings — the recruiting roundup.

Happy New Year Penn State fans! And welcome to the first Penn State football recruiting roundup of 2018!

As always, there is plenty of news to cover in the world of Penn State football recruiting. This week is practice for both the U.S. Army All-American Game, as well as the Under Armor All-American Game. The Nittany Lions have signees, commits, and targets, at both events. Furthermore, one of the Nittany Lions’ top targets is set to announce his commitment on Thursday.

With that said, let’s begin this week’s recruiting roundup.

Penn State signees/targets shine at all-star game practices

The U.S. Army High School All-American Game is this Saturday in San Antonio, Texas. In this game, five-star Penn State defensive athlete signee Micah Parsons will play linebacker for the East squad. As expected, Parsons has been dominant in practice this week.

The poor fella attempting to block Parsons in these videos is four-star offensive tackle Rasheed Walker. Walker is one of Penn State’s top remaining targets in the 2018 recruiting cycle. His recruitment is shaping up to be a battle between the Nittany Lions and the Buckeyes of Ohio State.

As Barton Simmons of 247 Sports discusses here, Parsons finished second in the race for ‘alpha dog’ of the day on Tuesday, noting that had he competed in the intrasquad portion of the day he would have been the alpha dog. Simmons was also very complimentary of Walker, who looked great when not trying to block Parsons.

Speaking of alpha dogs, four-star defensive tackle signee PJ Mustipher earned this honor on day one of Under Armor All-American practice on Sunday. Then on Tuesday, five-star wide receiver signee Justin Shorter earned the nod.

Five-star running back signee Ricky Slade has also earned rave reviews for the work he has done in practice this week. You can read about that from Mike Farrell of Rivals.com here. While it would be tough to do for Shorter or Slade as they are both already five-star players, it would not be a surprise to see Mustipher receive a ratings boost this week and become a consensus top-100 player.

Three-star athlete commit Shaquon Anderson-Butts will also play in the Under Armor All-American Game on Thursday. You can watch the game on Thursday on ESPN2.

Four-star defensive end target set to announce

At the Under Armor All-American Game on Thursday, four-star defensive end Jayson Oweh will announce his commitment. The New Jersey native will choose between Ohio State and Penn State. Right now, all signs point toward the Nittany Lions getting good news on Thursday afternoon.

Oweh is a borderline top-100 player, who could see a jump into the top-100 due to his performance in Orlando this week. Oweh has had a strong week of practice, and is expected to be a top performer in Thursday’s game.

Adding Oweh to the fold would add to what is already an insanely strong defensive line class for the Nittany Lions. While he is raw, few players in the 2018 recruiting cycle have as much potential when it comes to rushing the passer as Oweh does. Additionally, any time Penn State can beat their arch nemesis Ohio State Buckeyes in a recruiting battle it is an added bonus.

Next: PSU will still be plenty talented at RB in 2018

That will do it for this week. As always, stay tuned here at Victory Bell Rings for all of the latest news in the world of Penn State football recruiting. Especially with the pending commitment of Jayson Oweh on Thursday.