Since the day Zahir Mathis committed to Ohio State in January, James Franklin and the Penn State coaching staff have been trying to flip the 2025 top-100 recruit. Monday was a big step in that direction as the four-star defensive end out of Imhotep Charter in Philadelphia de-committed from the Buckeyes.
BREAKING: Four-Star EDGE Zahir Mathis has Decommitted from Ohio State, he tells me for @on3recruits
— Hayes Fawcett (@Hayesfawcett3) November 18, 2024
The 6’6 230 EDGE from Philadelphia, PA had been Committed to the Buckeyes since January
Top 100 Recruit in the ‘25 Class (per On3 Industry)https://t.co/0XUGIcliyC pic.twitter.com/fVbUBdYvd1
Penn State will be one of the top potential destinations for Mathis, who also has offers from Ohio State, Georgia, Texas, Coach Prime and Colorado, and just about every major program in the country. He has been on the Nittany Lion's radar but has not been on an official visit to Happy Valley, but was on campus twice this summer.
James Franklin has long said that “the best in PA stay in PA,” and while that’s currently true of the 2026 class with three of the top four players in the state committed to play for the Nittany Lions, it hasn’t been true in 2025. With Andrew Olesh committed to Michigan, Matt Zollers heading to Missouri, Bradley Gompers committed to Duke, and Mathis now undecided, none of the top four players in Pennsylvania in 2025 by 247Sports rankings are planning to play for Penn State.
Even other top PA talents like Lex Cyrus and Maxwell Roy appear poised to leave the state with commitments to South Carolina and Ohio State respectively. For Penn State to compete with teams like Ohio State at the top of the Big Ten, Franklin needs to land elite talents like Mathis, especially when they’re within his state’s borders, and now he has a second chance.
Penn State defensive line coach Deion Barnes has done an excellent job recruiting and developing edge rusher talent, so from a positional standpoint, Mathis isn’t a must-add prospect for the program, but he’d likely flourish in Happy Valley. Currently, four-star edge Jayden Woods from Kansas is the top-rated prospect in Penn State’s 2025 class, and four-star edge Max Granville reclassified from 2025 to 2024 and has already made an impact for this year’s team.
Even once Abdul Carter and Dani Dennis-Sutton leave for the NFL after this season or next, the Nittany Lions will have exciting young players on the edge to replace them with, but at 6-foot-6 and 225 pounds, Mathis would likely be the best of that group. By 247Sports composite rankings, he’s the No. 67 player in the country and by the composite rankings would be Penn State’s only top 100 player in 2025.