The No. 1 priority for James Franklin and Penn State on Saturday is to beat SMU and advance to the College Football Playoff Quarterfinals. Beyond that, the Nittany Lions are still recruiting because, in college football, you’re always recruiting. A key 2026 target will be in attendance for Penn State’s first-round matchup at Beaver Stadium, four-star safety Kaden Gebhardt from Olentangy High School in Ohio.
Gebhardt was high school teammates with Penn State true freshman, and newly minted backup quarterback, Ethan Grunkemeyer. This will be the third game that the 6-foot-2 200-pound defensive back has attended at Beaver Stadium this season. He also visited for Penn State’s loss to Ohio State and the White Out win over Washington the next weekend.
Ranked as the 215th best player in the 2026 high school class by 247Sports, Gebhardt received plenty of attention from the rest of the Big Ten in November, earning offers from USC, UCLA, and Ohio State. However, the four-star is still showing the most interest in the Nittany Lions, and a convincing College Football Playoff win with a White Out atmosphere could be enough to convince Gebhardt to commit.
James Franklin’s 2026 class currently features eight players, headlined by four-star in-state safety Matt Sieg. The group ranks third in the nation behind only Oregon and Texas A&M, and another four-star commit this early in the process could vault the Nittany Lions even higher. Franklin thrives on early recruiting, typically assembling the foundation of his class well before the rest of the country. His coaching staff’s early identification of talent has yielded great results and talented rosters that have outperformed their recruiting rankings, and Gebhardt fits the bill perfectly.
The main focus for the program is winning a national championship, and frankly, priority No. 2 is the transfer portal, which has already begun to yield some promising results with the addition of Kyron Hudson for 2025, but third is high school recruiting and Penn State is capable of a significant splash this weekend.