Penn State Football recruit Isaiah Raikes makes his decision

The Penn State football program has had their eyes on New Jersey defensive tackle Isaiah Raikes for a while. And finally, he’s made his decision.

Lately, the Penn State football program hasn’t been all that lucky with their 2020 recruiting class. With multiple back outs over the last week or so, quite a few people are losing confidence in the teams’ ability to bring in and keep high-end recruits — especially since the previous three recruits who changed their minds were four-star athletes.

What could the Nittany Lions do to gain that confidence from the outsiders back? Land some other big-name prospects. That’s precisely what Penn State has been trying to do throughout the duration of the offseason. And for the last few weeks now, they have been bringing in a wave of potential new commitments to participate in camps and check out the program.

One of those players who has been in and out of Happy Valley a lot lately is none other than New Jersey native, Isaiah Raikes. The St. Augustine Prep defensive tackle is a six-foot, 324-pound, three-star prospect from Richland. For a while now, it seemed like Raikes wasn’t going to go too far, as his recruiting journey contained many visits to schools that were close to him.

Of all the schools he took a visit to, Penn State and Rutgers were the two programs he visited on more than one occasion. Penn State specifically had Raikes reported on campus four times. Just a couple of weeks ago, he made his official visit to Happy Valley, which made it seem like the chances of landing him were much better. Unfortunately, an unofficial visit that he took in April was still on his mind. Ultimately, Raikes’ mind was made up after a pleasant visit to Texas A&M.

Raikes is off to College Station

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On Saturday night, Raikes took to Twitter to tease his potential announcement. “I think tomorrow sounds like a good day to commit,” he tweeted out. While nobody knew for sure where he was headed, his mentions flooded with Penn State fans who were excited to land the three-star prospect potentially. Knowing how well Penn State has recruited players out of Jersey in the past, it almost seemed inevitable. Unfortunately, they couldn’t land this one.