How Penn State Football is having recruiting success despite on-field woes

The NIL Era

The Name, Image and Likeness era of college sports is now here to stay, and schools are doing all they can to use it to their advantage on the recruiting front.

Admittedly, Penn State Football is not where it wants to be when it comes to NIL and how it’ll help them draw in recruits.

The Nittany Lions are behind rivals like Ohio State, Michigan, and Notre Dame, along with most southern schools, in the NIL department.

However, the Nittany Lions are ahead of the schools in their recruiting region. The likes of Rutgers, Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Pitt, and Syracuse do not have the resources or fanbase that Penn State has. When it comes to marketing players and putting them on the national stage, these schools don’t compare to Penn State. Penn State has the largest alumni base in the country and is the only national power in the region.

It really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise then that most of Penn State’s recruiting success in 2022 and 2023 is because of the work it’s done in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and New York. The Nittany Lions are dominating this region and the introduction of NIL laws will only help that continue.