Penn State Football: final thoughts on Nittany Lions’ historic 2022 Class

4. Keep the pipelines flowing

Penn State Football has its fair share of pipelines when it comes to recruiting and they went back to those wells in 2022.

The McDonogh School in Maryland has been kind to the Nittany Lions over the years and 2022 was no different as 5-star Dani Dennis-Sutton is a student-athlete there. Between Dennis-Sutton, P.J. Mustipher, D’Von Ellies and Curtis Jacobs, it feels like half of Penn State’s 2022 defense is from the McDonogh School.

Another Maryland powerhouse, DeMatha Catholic, has been one of Penn State Football’s favorite places to recruit over the years and that continued with 4-star safety K.J. Winston in 2022.

Winston, while a 4-star, feels like one of the more under-the-radar members of the class. With more studs at DeMatha in 2023, landing one of the best players on that team should help with the younger teammates.

IMG Academy in Florida is loaded with talent, making it probably the most recruited school in the entire country. While it will be difficult to constantly land guys from IMG with every big-name program in the country involved down there, Penn State has done well for itself over the years. Kaytron Allen was the starting running back at IMG this past season. While originally from Virginia, Allen made the move to IMG to help prepare him for the college game. As long as Ja’Juan Seider is in Happy Valley, Penn State will always at least be in the mix with IMG recruits.

The last pipeline that Penn State used to their advantage in 2022 was Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pa. The junior college has helped develop the likes of Jaquan Brisker, Ji’Ayir Brown, and Anthony Whigan over the years. Two 2022 signees, OT J.B. Nelson and safety Tyrece Mills, are enrolled at Lackawanna. As long as Lackawanna is around, James Franklin will continue to use it as a substitution for the transfer portal.