The 10 biggest ‘what ifs’ for Penn State Football recruiting

6. What if Christian Wilkins Committed to Penn State Football in 2015?

Penn State Football’s 2015 recruiting class was Franklin’s first full recruiting cycle at Penn State.

That class will always be remembered as the Saquon Barkley (more on him later) class, but it almost included another future first round pick. Christian Wilkins, a 5-star defensive tackle out of Connecticut, shocked a lot of people when he committed to Clemson over Penn State back in 2015.

Plenty of recruiting experts thought Wilkins was Happy Valley bound, a quick glance at his recruiting profile on 247 Sports shows that the Nittany Lions held seven of the eight predictions for Wilkins, the other was for Ohio State. While no one is perfect, the experts at 247 Sports are pretty close, so to see them all get this one wrong means it was quite a shocker.

Had Wilkins committed the Penn State like he was expected to, he would have been a part of the Trace McSorley led teams that went 31-9 from 2016 to 2018. With Wilkins as an anchor on the defensive line, would Penn State’s record have been better over those three years? In his four years at Clemson, Wilkins totaled 192 tackles, 40.5 tackles for loss and 16 sacks.

Out of the nine games Penn State lost during the McSorley era, only a few had to do with being unable to stop the run, most notably Pitt and Michigan in 2016 and Kentucky in the Citrus Bowl. Had Wilkins been at the Pitt game in 2016, Penn State may have had a better shot at the playoff that year.