Johnson and Dowrey Are Not "Plan B" Recruits

Rumors anywhere else aren’t worth the bandwidth it takes to discuss them

Hmm. So is that the ticket then?

thus cannot be true.

I think that’s what Joe, the eternal egotist, has in mind for himself.

I agree with spak. I don’t trust Paterno to do anything and I can’t tolerate more than thirty years of his arrogance and inability to win 400 games.

or if people sat around in bars saying the same things 20 years ago? We now have the internet boards for more people to voice their frustrations, but I’m not sure that attitudes have necessarily changed.

Other than that, the dark years weren’t horrible teams. It was a string of bad luck and bad calls and a funk of losing that it took Robinson to Smolko and Robinson to Williams and here’s how you do a headstand, Troy Smith to shake.

Taking away 2003, PSU was 15-17 in Big Ten play from 2000-2004. When you consider games lost on questionable-to-awful calls / no calls, it’s not that bad.

Not to name names, but there are other Penn State boards that seem to consist of the same five children going postal over everything that happens. I really hope they stay there and don’t wander into the BSD backyard.

but I would liken recruiting before the online recruiting service stuff to fantasy sports (baseball, football, etc) before online accessibility. Magazines and newsletters you had to subscribe to. Much more effort was required than just going online with a credit card.

Recruiting was still a big, public process back in the day, from what I can gather. I recently watched the 30 for 30s on SMU and Marcus Dupree, and while there weren’t camps and travel teams, fans still followed the big recruits like crazy.

Anyway, it seems silly to take the audibles folks seriously. Last year they nearly had a stroke when we “wasted an offer” on Matt Zanatello, who was unevaluated by the recruiting services at the time. Of course, then he got a four-star rating, and they all got quiet. The same thing could very well happen with one or both of Johnson or Dowrey.

ilk that festers in the fathoms

They just haven’t been evaluated yet. If the recruiting services come back after reviewing their tape and give them 2 stars, fine. But these are kids from small schools who haven’t really been playing the recruiting game—aside from tape we’ve reviewed ourselves and LJ’s decision to offer them on the spot, we don’t really know anything about them. They could very well both end up with 4-star ratings by signing day. As with last year’s whole recruiting class, wait until you have all your info before passing judgment.

It seems like several of the lineman can play either offense or defense. Should be interesting to see where they end up.

Reeves is a good bet. Seems like Wilson’s going to end up at Michigan. I’d like Mahone to commit sooner rather than later because I see that and CB as our big positions of need right now. Wouldn’t be opposed to seeing a QB commit either.

The official roster lists 18 Sr’s, and that’s the minimum of what we’ll have to work with. We have plenty of room for TE’s, DB’s, possibly a RB. Also keep in mind that just because someone isn’t listed as highly rated right now doesn’t mean they won’t be in the next few months when things get re-evaluated.

but they haven’t been thoroughly evaluated. And even if they are evaluated based on their Jr. season tapes, we can also assume that whatever negatives the evaluators see have also been noticed by the PSU coaches. Further, we can assume that, with those players practicing and working on technique right in front of their faces, the coaching staff was satisfied that those tape weaknesses could be easily corrected and/or that the athlete offered significant room for growth and improvement.

When a player has been adequately coached and trained for years in a major high school program, their weaknesses are less likely to be overcome. But when a player has little experience against top competition or hasn’t been adequately drilled in technique and conditioning, then whatever weaknesses one may find have a much higher probability of being corrected. So I’ll trust LJ, Bradley and Co. to be able to see more than just what’s on tape.

Also, I think at least one of the guys is a potential OG. So we’ll see how the numbers game plays out.

I do think one or two of the DT’s we’ve recruited will kick over to Guard/Tackle.

I think that’s SF most W.

…because my browser doesn’t show these pop’ups you speak of?

Yes. Yes I am.

2 of the earlier DL comitts were offered by other “big name” schools. The one from my town (Jamil Pollard) had offers from Bama and Florida but wants to play close to home so he chose PSU over Rutgers.