The 2008 Penn State recruiting class: Always look on the bright side of life

Look, it’s not that bad. This is hardly a killer class, but what did you expect? There were three—3—classes in Scout.com’s top 25, and three—3—in Rivals.com’s top 25 for 2008, which signed fewer than 20 players. Ohio State, USC and Washington (Rivals.com only) and Pittsburgh (Scout.com only) all signed 19.

In the Scout.com rankings, PSU is an underachieving No. 41, but is that really lower than it should be? Outside of the top 25, No. 35 Tennessee and No. 30 North Carolina both signed 18. No. 43 Stanford is the only other top-50 class—excluding PSU—to sign 18 or fewer to its 2008 class. Just to put that into perspective, PSU signed 14 players. The next highest class, after PSU, to sign fewer than 18 is Texas Tech (15 signed), at No. 59.

And what about Rivals.com’s rankings? Not far off, as they ranked PSU No. 42, tied with Texas Tech. As for teams in the No. 26-50 range signing fewer than 20 players, Rivals.com has No. 29 Pitt, No. 32 Maryland, No. 34 UNC, No. 36 Tennessee, and No. 50 Stanford, which signed the lowest (17 signed) next to PSU and TTU.

I don’t want to hear it, that PSU is now on the same level as Texas Tech. That’s just not true. Had PSU been able to hand out more scholarships in 2008, you bet your ass that the class would have been better. What was PSU supposed to do, put all its efforts into signing four and five-star players and forget about the threes and twos? That’s just not good recruiting. Just to remind people, Jordan Norwood was a one-star, Deon Butler a two-star, Paul Pozluszny a three-star, Tony Hunt a three-star. For some weird reason, PSU is actually good at developing lower-ranked recruits into top-notch players. Too bad they can’t develop those blue-chippers more often.