2021 Recruiting Class Thread
- Thread starter Statewise
- Start date
The inability to host visitors has been an absolute killer for us.
That's true. But he's never even been to Oklahoma.
He's in our backyard and has been our priority D-line recruit. Losing him to a school that doesn't play defense would suck.
Been a pretty rough few months on the recruiting trail.
Oklahoma’s been in the playoff for three straight seasons. They’re in a much stronger position to land kids without a visit than we are. 90% of Penn State’s recruiting pitch is predicated on getting kids to visit campus.
How does that explain losing kids to the West Virginias and North Carolinas of the world? They are not exactly blue bloods. No way to sugarcoat it. This has been a mediocre recruiting season for a school that's had the success Penn State has had the past few years.
North Carolina is recruiting better than pretty much every school in the country not named Ohio State. Clemson is losing kids to UNC this year. And the kid who we lost to West Virginia visited Morgantown before the pandemic, and had a lengthy relationship with the coach who he originally developed a connection with here. Meanwhile, he couldn’t visit here and meet Stubblefield.
Nobody’s arguing that it hasn’t been a tough year on the recruiting trail. But that should be somewhat expected and not entirely surprising when Penn State’s biggest and most prominent recruiting pitch and selling point is “come visit us and check out State College - trust us, you’ll love it when you get on campus!” and that pitch gets taken away from you for an entire spring and summer.
First, I think Franklin has done an amazing job here. In 2012, no one in their right mind would have predicted that Penn State would win the Big 10 Championship and be on the cusp of the College Football Playoff in 2016.
However, Penn State's recruiting momentum losing steam isn't new. As we all know, just last year, among the recruits the program failed to land were two elite recruits from our natural recruiting area - Fleming and Bresee - who we once led for.
Add this year's relatively mediocre performance to the mix - those crystal balls for Rucci picking Wisconsin were made for a reason and are a huge concern - and the program appears to be trending further from, instead of closer to, that elusive CFP spot.
I'm not saying that Franklin can't suddenly turn it around and grab two Top 5 classes in a row in 2022 and 2023. He's a fabulous recruiter. Only that he knows the program needs to do better than 2020 and 2021 in order to get to the elite status which he, himself, craves.
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Why do you clowns post 2 pages of melancholy crap every time a crystal ball is submitted against is?
I believe recruiting this year will be very fluid....if on campus visits are feasible later I think there will be a number of athletes changing their minds. I also believe the transfer portals will be a very busy place due to todays circumstances for the next two years.
...based on their weak conference...
and unlike Clemson, whose conference is even worse, Oklahoma has yet to undermine that narrative by post-season performance.
Sat in Joe’s office in Spring of 95. It was very modest compared to what you see now. Part of the problem today is having to always keep up with places like Oregon.
QUOTE="ChiTownLion, post: 4976482, member: 486"][/QUOTE]
^^ What do we know about these WRs?
^^ What do we know about these WRs?
^^ What do we know about these WRs?[/QUOTE]
Looks like one of them committed to FLA yesterday.
Wiltfong just CBed Gilliam to PSU with a confidence level of 7 - woohoo! Generally a good sign, as he's the closest thing to a straight shooter at TOS.
Free VIP day on TOS is today, for all of those interested in digging back for some scoops.
Short list on the way for Rivals250 DL Kelvin Gilliam Jr.
Penn State: “Penn State is definitely family,” he said. “Coach Seider I pretty much consider an uncle. I feel like I can talk with them and they've always been honest with me. Seeing what they can do with defensive linemen, they've had a lot of great defensive players. They've been so consistent on the defensive side of the ball and I'm excited to see what they can do this upcoming season. Coach Scott is my guy. He sees me playing defensive end, defensive tackle, three-technique, and sometimes I might stand up. Hearing about how they want to use my athleticism and versatility is great. During my visit, they were so attentive to me and my family. The coaches were always around me and talking to me. That visit blew me away.”
https://n.rivals.com/news/short-list-on-the-way-for-rivals250-dl-kelvin-gilliam-jr-
Penn State: “Penn State is definitely family,” he said. “Coach Seider I pretty much consider an uncle. I feel like I can talk with them and they've always been honest with me. Seeing what they can do with defensive linemen, they've had a lot of great defensive players. They've been so consistent on the defensive side of the ball and I'm excited to see what they can do this upcoming season. Coach Scott is my guy. He sees me playing defensive end, defensive tackle, three-technique, and sometimes I might stand up. Hearing about how they want to use my athleticism and versatility is great. During my visit, they were so attentive to me and my family. The coaches were always around me and talking to me. That visit blew me away.”
https://n.rivals.com/news/short-list-on-the-way-for-rivals250-dl-kelvin-gilliam-jr-
I generally don't put too much stock in these interviews, because these kids find positive things to say about everybody on their list. But that's about as positive a take as one can possibly give/get.
Nice. It's funny how quick everyone is ready be doom and gloom after two CB picks for Oklahoma, then Wilfong shares some good news and nobody wants to talk about it? Would be a huge pick-up for Scott, especially considering the lack of face-to-face over the past couple of months.
Sounds like we could be looking at two top '22 prospects' commitments in the next few weeks too.
A few of the posts from yesterday talking about the Wiltfong CB were deleted. I think they might have pulled direct quotes from behind the 247 paywall.
Or they were deleted as part of the clean up of the childish bickering that sometimes takes over this thread.....
Yes. Sorry, my post was prior to the Wiltfong CB.
Farrell and Bone in for Gilliam FC to OU. Farrell was before Steve, Bone after. Site vs Site.
Sort of trust Wilfong here, especially with Gilliam's quotes to consider.
Bingo. I'd like to see the numbers, but I'd be willing to guess that Wiltfong's (and the rest of the 247 crew's) batting average is a heck of a lot better than Rivals guys like Farrell.
Wiltfong is at 98.8% accuracy for the 2021 class. Farrell is at 86%.
Of course, I don't know what their success rates are for predictions made more than 2-3 days from announcement. It's easy to get predictions right when word leaks out right before the announcement and a wave of experts put in CBs for a particular school.
We'll see soon enough.
An OU insider just gave a CB for Gilliam to OU. Confidence level of 9.
Of course, he's only made 5 picks all year, and got 2 of the 5 right. He was the one guy that picked OU for the 5* WR that everybody else on the planet has going to Ohio State, for instance. He's the one guy who is picking OU for Tristan Leigh. Seems like a classic CB homer.
The whole CB thing was marketing genius, if nothing else.
Of course, he's only made 5 picks all year, and got 2 of the 5 right. He was the one guy that picked OU for the 5* WR that everybody else on the planet has going to Ohio State, for instance. He's the one guy who is picking OU for Tristan Leigh. Seems like a classic CB homer.
The whole CB thing was marketing genius, if nothing else.
It's important to note, though, that Wiltfong approaches his predictions from the point of view of "if the kid was committing today, where would he commit to," which tends to result in him changing his picks - but they usually end up being accurate, and his info tends to be pretty good. I'd trust Wiltfong's info more than I'd trust Farrell's.
In a case like this, where the kid announces his commit date and Wiltfong puts in a prediction, it tends to be on pretty good info - kids usually don't set a commitment date if they don't know where they're going to commit to. That's a little different than a case like Rucci, where Wiltfong has a CB for Wisconsin, but the kid hasn't set a commit date yet and it's more of a "if Rucci decided to commit today, it'd be to Wisconsin" sort of thing.
Personally I like to wait until after the player commits then call it. That’s how you build viewer confidence in your commitment posts.
When I see a list like that coming from a kid in our recruiting territory, I can't help but think certain thoughts.
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