Penn State Football: 3 recruiting takeaways from July

3. Questions remain

July maybe wasn’t as wild as we all expected.

Gaining four commits and losing two certainly isn’t nothing, but some holes remain.

The Nittany Lions still need to replace Stokes. The main target looks like Tulane commit Jaxon Smolik, who was on campus this weekend. The 3-star gained a lot of national attention after a great showing at the Elite 11 Finals.

Penn State also needs to find a wide receiver or two to pair with 4-star Ejani Shakir. Haynes was a tough loss, especially with Cam Seldon and Rodney Gallagher committing elsewhere. Considering the success Jahan Dotson had as a Nittany Lion, you would think recruiting wide outs would be easy, but so far it hasn’t been in the 2023 cycle.

The last order of business is what’s going on with the two tackle targets.

Penn State has the best interior offensive line haul in the country with 5-star Alex Birchmeier and high 4-star Jven Williams. They just need to land a tackle or two to complement these two and 3-star Anthony Donkoh.

The two names to keep an eye on are 4-stars Evan Link and Stanton Ramil.

While it’s unlikely Penn State ends up with both, they cannot go 0-2 here. Landing just one of these guys would be a huge victory. It’s somewhat surprising that neither has made a decision yet after taking multiple official visits in June.