Penn State Football: Two more commitments and another loss occurs
Penn State football’s 2020 recruiting class has done well for themselves over the last couple of days, but they also dealt with another loss as well.
Perhaps the most eventful weekend of the offseason is here for the Penn State football program as they are hosting a ton of potential recruiting prospects. Time is beginning to wind down on the minicamps as training camp will soon start for the Nittany Lions in about a month or so. But as the wait for training camp is still on, the Nittany Lions program is still keeping busy by handing out offers to 2021 prospects and gaining verbal commitments from 2020 recruits.
By now, everybody is well aware of the struggles that Penn State has dealt with over the last few weeks. With a handful of de-commitments — from four-star prospects at that, Penn State has had a hard time bouncing back. With one player backing out from their commitment after another, it gave the school, the coaches, and the team overall a bad look for other potential commits.
It was a rough few weeks, and it was getting tough for Penn State to bounce back. But finally, it seems as though the Nittany Lions are getting back on track. Two nights ago, they picked up two commitments — one from a four-star wide receiver prospect in Jaden Dottin. Then, it didn’t take long for them to get another verbal commitment from three-star safety/cornerback Ji’Ayir Brown.
Two commitments in a matter of a couple of hours on a Friday night was quite the pleasant surprise for Penn State. However, they fared out almost as well on Saturday, as they picked up a verbal commitment from a couple more prospects. Unfortunately, they couldn’t make it out of this recruiting weekend without losing a commitment as well.
Who’s out of the picture?
As we’ve mentioned before, Penn State has had its fair share of de-commitments recently. They lost a few four-star prospects in Grant Toutant, Aaryn Parks, and Josh Moten. Now, you can add a four-star linebacker into the mix as Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based linebacker Derek Wingo decided to back out. The decision for Wingo to take Penn State out of the picture wasn’t personal.
Unfortunately for the Lions, Wingo wants to stay down in his home state. So with his de-commitment, Wingo didn’t waste any time announcing that along with his de-commitment from Penn State, he will be moving up to Gainesville to continue his playing career with the Gators.
Who’s entering the 2020 class?
https://twitter.com/Mulbah_55/status/1142552170992193536
Penn State lost a solid prospect — it’s not an ideal situation, but it’s a situation they are at least adjusted to at this point. When that happens, it’s next man up. Fortunately for Penn State, they were able to acquire a couple of commitments.
First, they got the word from three-star defensive tackle, Fatorma Mulbah. The Harrisburg, Pennsylvania defensive lineman is recognized as the fifth-best player in the state. Although he didn’t have a ton of offers from around the NCAA, Penn State was by far the most notable program on Mulbah’s radar out of the nine schools that made an offer to him.
After three visits to Happy Valley, Mulbah finally decided to let the Nittany Lions know that he’s coming to Happy Valley next season and intends on joining the 2020 class.
https://twitter.com/Co_Izzard/status/1142599663159320576
You can never have enough defensive linemen. Along with Fatorma Mulbah’s commitment, the Nittany Lions picked up another one from the highly-touted four-star defensive end, Coziah Izzard. As a prospect from Maryland, it’s expected that Izzard had some substantial interest from the Terrapins. However, his major local university wasn’t the only school with eyes for Izzard.
With nearly 30 offers, Izzard had quite a lot of interest from around the NCAA. He had offers from major SEC teams such as Florida, Georgia, Texas A&M, and Alabama along with offers from some of the Big Ten’s best such as Ohio State, Michigan State, and Iowa. However, none of that mattered in the end as Izzard stuck to what he knew best — that was Penn State.
Next. 2 commitments improve PSU's 2020 recruiting ranking. dark
The Nittany Lions have been heavily scouting Izzard over the last two years. With nearly seven reported visits to Happy Valley, no other team has come close to putting in the work for Izzard as the Nittany Lions have. Clearly, that consistency spoke volumes to Izzard as he finally made his decision and picked Penn State as his landing spot for next season.