Penn State Football: Closer to 7-5 or College Football Playoff?

Road To Mediocrity #1

Miss on 5* recruits

And what I mean by “Miss on 5* recruits” is for a program to land a 5* and have them not perform like a 5* recruit.

Dan Connor
Anthony Morelli
Derrick Williams
Justin King
Maurice Evans
Christian Hackenberg
Miles Sanders
Micah Parson
Justin Shorter
Ricky Slade
Brandon Smith

This is a full list of all of the 5* recruits Penn State has signed since 2000. It’s kind of a mixed bag, isn’t it?

While a handful of these guys proved beyond a shadow of doubt that they deserved the 5* rating, many of them fell short and some of them were complete busts.

Did Anthony Morelli, Derrick Williams, and Christian Hackenberg have productive Penn State careers? Yes. But did they live up to the their ratings as the 15th best player in the country (#2 QB), the 4th best player in the country, and the 13th best player in the country (#2 QB)? I hate to say it, but no. They didn’t.

And here’s the thing, if your program lands a 5* recruit once every two years, then the simple recipe for mediocrity is be wrong far more times than you’re right. The types of programs which don’t load up each recruiting class with 4+ 5* recruits simply cannot afford to get it wrong when they finally pull one in.

The reason why?

High school football recruits aren’t dummies. If a highly rated 4* recruit is interested in your program and they see you pull in a 5* who plays the same position? They will see the writing on the wall and look to sign elsewhere. I know, I know. This is just how it works and the days of highly rated players working their tails off to earn a spot is mostly gone. Key word is “mostly”.

So what happens if the 5* doesn’t like up to their hype? Or worse, they’re a complete bust? Not only do you not have a viable player at that specific spot, you also don’t have a highly talented backup because they signed somewhere else.

And if this trend continues for a 10 win program, then it’s not hard to drop several more games down the road.