Thinning Ranks

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Penn State is looking at handing out maybe 15 scholarships in the upcoming recruiting class. After three straight years of top 25 freshmen hauls, overcrowding has become a real problem on the depth chart. Top 25 linebackers (in their respective recruiting classes) Tyrell Sales, Dontey Brown and Jerome Hayes are just now cracking the 1st team defense and surprisingly enough, none of them or really anyone else in the junior and senior classes has considered transferring or leaving early.

Just look at rising senior quarterback Anthony Morelli, ranked as the No. 2 pro-style quarterback coming out of high school. He sat two long years on the bench behind the likes of Zach Mills and Michael Robinson, while seeing only extreme mop up duty here and there. Morelli de-committed from Pitt just before signing day to join the Nittany Lions, with the hopes that he would fill in nicely for the graduating Mills. 2004, nothing. 2005, nothing. 2006, OK finally the starting job, but hardly the type of breakout season he and everyone else was hoping for. Granted, he performed admirably with no real experience. Yet fans can't help but dream about what could have been had he been given more than a few dozen pass attempts over his first two seasons.

This season, though, with Morelli, tailback Austin Scott, All-America linebacker Dan Connor and others leaving for the NFL or graduating, Penn State came around to the idea of redshirting a future starter in rising redshirt freshman Pat Devlin. Devlin was yet another recruiting steal, this time from Miami (FL). And with plenty of backups to chose from, the Lions should be set for a few years under center.

Similar to the NFL Draft, college recruiting follows a fairly reliable pattern. That is, good NFL teams draft for need; bad teams draft for the best talent available. It is not all that different from college. Take Illinois for instance. When they were pathetic, they put everything into getting players like Rashard Mendenhall and Juice Williams. Now that the team talent is improving, head coach Ron Zook can look at less "impact" positions to build up.

Penn State is showing a great deal of interest, understandably, on Terelle Pryor, the No. 1 overall prospect and top-rated dual-threat quarterback. Why? It has been years since the offensive line dominated opponents, and for some reason, great recruits haven't panned out in Happy Valley. Levi Brown taken at No. 5 overall in this year's NFL draft is the highest since Jeff Hartings and Andre Johnson were taken 23 and 30 overall respectively.

Bottom line today is this: Penn State needs to be very, very careful how it uses its scholarships going into 2008. Sign for need, not talent. There is not nearly enough to miss out on filling slots for the future. Otherwise, get ready for another stretch similar to the five years of hell, 2000-2004.