Penn State Football left off Enai White’s Top 8

Penn State Football has been left off of the recent cut for 5-star defensive end Enai White.

White’s top eight includes Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Oregon, Miami, Florida and Georgia.

With it looking like White will head elsewhere, it now marks five recruiting cycles since Penn State last landed the top player in the 247 Sports composite rankings in their own state. The last being Micah Parsons in 2018.

Despite missing out on White, Penn State has done a great job with in-state recruiting in 2022. They have commitments from four of the top 12 players in state. That number is five, if you include Drew Shelton, who is now listed as Florida recruit.

In addition to who they already have, Penn State is in great shape with three other top 10 recruits in the state; Nick Singleton, Keenan Nelson Jr. and Ryan Brubaker.

The hope was that White’s relationship with numerous commits, most notably Ken Talley, would help. It may have, but not enough for White to continue his interest in Penn State.

Defensive end recruiting has been talked about a lot lately. Penn State struggled to recruit the position in 2019 and 2020, but made up some ground in 2021 by adding Rodney McGraw and Davon Townley.

Even without White, the Nittany Lions look primed to put together a solid defensive end haul in 2022. Four star Dani Dennis-Sutton is the big name, but the target group includes 4-stars Joe Strickland and Tyreese Fearbry and 3-stars Anto Saka and Keon Wylie. Fearbry and Wylie are Pennsylvania recruits.

Visits open up at the beginning of June, and all the defensive end targets listed above are expected to be in Happy Valley at some point next month.

White had also expressed interest in visiting Penn State in June, it’s unclear if that will still happen. Chances are it will not.