Looking Ahead to 2009 - Quarterbacks

Recruiting never ends. Before the ink is completely dry on the class of 2008 it's time to start talking about the class of 2009. Penn State has already handed out over 20 written offers. If you think that's crazy, Ohio State already has six verbal commitments for the class of 2009. So starting today we'll break down our recruiting needs and identify some of the top targets we'll be going after. First, let's examine how many scholarships we'll have available. The following is the list of players who will run out of eligibility after the 2008 season.

So that's 21 scholarships to play with right there. We had at least two scholarships go unused in this class. Figure a few seniors won't return for their fifth year and I imagine we'll end up with a full class of 25 players. So this will be an extremely important recruiting year for the future of our program.

Today we'll start with examining our needs at quarterback. Let's take a look at the 2008 quarterback roster.

So you can see that after the 2008 season we only have two scholarship quarterbacks on the roster. We need quarterbacks badly. So I'm looking for Penn State to take at least two in the class of 2009. The wildcard hanging out there is Terrelle Pryor. If we're fortunate enough to land him in this class we may take just one, but I think we'll still take two regardless of what Pryor does. We desperately need more depth at this position. Somebody is going to have to run the scout team in 2009, and I prefer it not be either Clark or Devlin.

So here are some of the top quarterback targets Penn State will be going after in this recruiting class.