The class of 2009 is starting to fill out for Penn State. Today we partially filled a position of major need when St. Joseph's Prep offensive tackle Mark Arcidiacono announced he's going to Penn State.

Remember a few years ago when half the team had the last name Johnson? Now I have to learn how to spell names like Stankiewitch and Wisniewski. Arcidiancono is going to take me a while. I'll have to print out a copy of the Penn State roster and keep it handy.

Achiden...

Archedan...

Ugh, the 6-5 290 lb tackle fills a major need for Penn State. With Cadogen gone after this year and Landolt gone after 2009 it's not certain who on the depth chart is going to fill in. Arcidiancono (Yes!) has an excellent chance to play early if not right away. He passed on other offers from over 20 schools including Florida, Notre Dame, and Rutgers.

This morning his high school coach gave some insight into why the Nittany Lions were his choice.

Given Joe Paterno's uncertain future this is what I expected. The only top notch recruits we'll get are the ones that grew up with Ki-Jana Carter posters on their walls. Maybe Arcidianoco had Jeff Hartings posters. Who knows.

Anyway, I'm not complaining about this one. Big kid with an impressive offer list in a position of major need. Nice work Penn State and welcome to the family, Mark. Now can we get a quarterback and maybe a wide receiver or two?

I'm staying out of the message boards today. There is a sinister darkness festering. It boils up every time Penn State has a recruiting setback such as we had this weekend when Northeast Philadelphia wide receiver Je'Ron Stokes verbally committed to Tennessee while on an unofficial visit.

Here is how the equation works:

A great in-state player

plus

Favorable depth chart

plus

Over-optimistic recruiting analysts

plus

Perceived laziness by PSU coaching staff

plus

Commitment to an out of state school

equals

PSU Message Board Reaction

Seriously, people, get a grip. We're talking about a 17 year-old kid believing God wants him to play football for Phil Fulmer. Some of you act like the government sent you a notice they are taking away your house to put up a Dairy Queen. I'm just as disappointed as the next guy, but the level of vitriol in the message boards is over the top. Posters calling out the "Kool-Aid Crowd". Others shouting down the "Doom-and-Gloomers". Some people are even attacking the moderators as if they had a hand in this. Give me a break. Are we in friggin' kindergarden here?

From everything I've read Stokes fell in love with Tennessee, and can you blame him? How many first round wide receivers and quarterbacks have they produced? How much love do the SEC offenses get on television? I'm not surprised any wide receiver would choose Tennessee over Penn State. But to the kid's credit, he didn't say anything bad about Penn State. And he didn't string us along until signing day (or beyond). And he didn't screw us on signing day by going with the snake-oil selling wizard. So you have to admire his class in being upfront and giving us a chance to pursue other kids.

The comments to this post will undoubtedly lead toward a discussion about the future of Penn State and Joe Paterno and his effect on recruiting. Whatever. If you're already forming the words in your head you've missed the point of this post. I'm getting more and more disgusted in the level of discourse in the message boards I used to enjoy visiting. There is something seriously disturbing about it. I just felt like something needed to be said.

Alright, let’s wrap this up and go over the safety situation and then we’ll look at the targets for 2009. First a look at the 2008 roster.

You can see we’re going to take a big hit after this season. In 2009 we’ll most likely be starting a couple of redshirt sophomores in the backfield. I have confidence that Sukay and Powell will be pretty good with time, but we didn’t take any safeties in the last class so we’re not going to have much depth in 2009 unless we bring in a few kids this year. I think Penn State really needs to bring in at least two, preferably three safeties in this class. Here are the targets we’re looking at.

Realistically the kids from Florida and South Carolina are probably too far out of our natural recruiting area. But we’ll see what happens. We have a good situation where potential recruits looking at our depth chart should see an opportunity to come in and compete for playing time right away.

Now that that’s over I can get to work on the 2009 recruiting chart. I’m going to tweak it a bit from last year mostly to make it easier for me to update. Once the season starts it’s too hard to link to articles individually, so I’ll probably lean toward just providing you with the tools to google stalk these kids on your own. So give me a week or so to put it together. Any suggestions for the recruiting board are greatly appreciated. Let me know what kind of information you’re interested in seeing.

Ok I’ve dragged my feet on this long enough. We need to wrap up this series so I can get to work on the 2009 recruiting chart. Let’s whip through the cornerbacks and then we have just the safeties to go.

When you look at that depth chart you see a lot of juniors and seniors. I was hoping Penn State would have taken two cornerbacks in the last recruiting class, but we only got D’Anton Lynn. And he played safety in high school.

Cornerback is a desperate need for us this year. Sargeant is in his last year. Wallace may follow Justin King and enter the NFL early if he has a breakout year. He’s got the speed and athleticism to blow away the scouts in the NFL combine. Timmons and Harriott are both in the dog house, so who knows what their status is and if they can get it together. So this year I think it’s crucial that the Nittany Lions bring in at least three top notch cornerbacks. Here are the targets we’re going after.

So there they are. We need three of them. Realistically I would be thrilled with two of them and a Plan B athlete type kid yet to be determined. The bottom line is we need bodies. Preferably fast bodies. Here is the projected scholarship allocation.

Penn State landed their first commitment for the class of 2009 when Bunn, NC offensive lineman Ty Howle committed to Joe Paterno during an unofficial visit this past weekend.

The 6'3" 295 pounder is projected to play center for the Nittany Lions after playing center his entire high school career. While playing for his head coach and father, Howle led his team to a 9-3 record and earned All-State Honors in North Carolina.

Though is offer list wasn't very impressive (East Carolina and Navy), most people agree this is a good pickup for Penn State. From looking at film it looks like this kid has that nasty streak that I love to see in an offensive lineman. If he gets his hands on you you're blocked. And when he blocks you he isn't happy unless you're eating grass and mud. We need a pure center to replace A.Q. Shipley. If Howle turns out to be that guy it will give us flexibility to move Wisniewski or Stankiewitch over to guard. Personally, I'm just glad we took a lineman with a name easier to spell than Wisniewski and Stankiewitch.

What really impressed me is that Ty just sounds like a really good kid.

Welcome to the family, Ty. We are Penn State.

I see the site meter is going through the roof, so I guess people are waiting for me to make some kind of comment on Terrelle Pryor. As if you all haven't known for months already, he's going to Ohio State.

Anyone who hasn't known this for the past few months hasn't been paying attention. And anyone who woke up this morning still holding on to hope he would wear the Blue and White is just dumb. The signs of this have been on the wall forever.

We're not going to trash the kid in this space. He had to make the decision that was right for him. We wish him luck, except when he's playing against Penn State.

What bothers me are the comments he had to say in his press conference. Take a look at what he had to say about Penn State.

So there you have it. If Bradley was either the coach or named the successor it may have been a different story. The longer the administration delays in addressing Joe's contract situation the more recruits we're going to lose.

I just saw this and thought it looked pretty cool. It's the Penn State offer letter sent to Tate Forcier, the uber quarterback recruit everyone is after for the class of 2009. You can view some of the other offer letters that have been sent to Forcier here.

After reading some of the other letters he recieved, the personal touch Joe Paterno puts into each of his letters really stands out. Most letters read like a standard form letter written by a lawyer. They dot the i's and cross the t's. But Joe's letter has some very nice personal flavor to it. Take for instance this line.

I read all of the posted letters, and Penn State was the one that actually worked his name into the body of the letter. And of course, how can you miss the personal hand written note at the bottom.

I looked at most of the letters he recieved so far and only Baylor, Michigan, and Wisconsin took the time to jot a hand written note. It's personal touches like this that can mean a lot to the right kid.

(HT: Michigan Sports Center)

Congratulations to Terrelle Pryor and his teammates from Jeannette for winning the PIAA AA Basketball Championship. You would think tonight would be a night of celebrating with his teammates. A night for kicking back and savoring the victory. It seems like an odd time to say this.

Interesting theory that began floating around the Penn State message boards this morning: Could Pryor have ruled out Penn State weeks ago but just strung the Nittany Lions along until he got past this string of games in the Jordan Center? Think about it. If he had committed to Ohio State back on signing day, how friendly would the Jordan Center have been this afternoon? The Penn State students would have undoubtedly got a head start on booing him before he ever put on the Scarlett and Gray. But instead he was showered with praise as the thousands who packed the Jordan Center cheered his name.

I think it's pretty obvious he's not going to Penn State now. He said a few weeks ago he was going to sign with Ohio State on signing day, but he delayed it out of respect for his father who asked him to give Penn State another look. He said all along he intended to visit Penn State, but now just hours after playing his last basketball game in State College he says he's ready to announce, and oh yeah, he won't be visiting Penn State afterall. The writing is on the wall, people. Terrelle Pryor is a Buckeye.

I was getting bored going through these recruiting position breakdowns, but I got a few emails asking me to wrap up the linebackers and defensive backs. So today we’ll go back to doing that. Let’s look at the linebackers. Here is the projected depth chart.

There was talk about moving Sean Lee from Sam to inside, but I get the impression now that isn’t going to happen because the coaches are very high on Chris Colasanti. You may remember he saw considerable action late in the season. In addition, Mike Mauti enrolled early and physically looks ready to play right now. After going through the spring he should be ready to play a backup roll. So the coaches are feeling pretty good about the middle linebackers. Not included in the list are Andrew Dailey, Mike Zordich, Mike Yancich, or Shaine Thompson, a freshman walkon from New York that is reportedly looking very impressive.

We look to lose four guys in the next two years: Lee, Brown, Sales, and Hull. The good news is we have a flood of great talent waiting to take their place. The bad news is this is going to scare off a bunch of kids. I have a feeling we’re probably looking at one or two years of taking pretty average linebacker classes much like we’ve done on the defensive line the past few years. The stellar class of 2006 has seemingly scared off a lot of talent the past two years. We’ve signed kids that look more like projects than future All-Americans. This may be what we’re in for over the next few years as kids will be looking at our roster thinking they have a better chance of playing and standing out somewhere else.

But with 25 scholarships to give I think Penn State will still try to land two linebackers in this class. Here are the early targets we’re looking at.

Again, I wouldn’t get too excited about these kids. I expect we’ll probably end up taking some local three star kids with a dream of wearing the blue and white more than being a star. Here is how the scholarship allocation chart is shaping up. Next time we’ll do the cornerbacks.

We’re almost done with looking at the 2009 recruiting season. Today we’ll look at the defensive ends. Here’s the 2008 depth chart.

Not listed are Tom Golarz or Jed Hill. Okoli could get moved to defensive tackle this spring, but given our depth there I doubt it.

We actually have a really good mix of experience and youth at defensive end this year. But there are a few questions on this depth chart. Jerome Hayes and Devon Still are both coming back from reconstructive knee surgery. Both of them are doing well in their rehab from what I’m reading, so there is optimism they’ll be ready to go in time for the fall, but I doubt they’ll really be full speed until near the end of the 2008 season. Those ACL tears are so hard to predict.

Gaines is gone after 2008. And let’s face it now. If Evans follows up his 12.5 sacks in 2008 with a 14 or 15 sack performance in 2009 he’s probably going pro a year early. So factor in that along with the iffy status of Hayes and Still and we need to bring in a few defensive ends in this class. I’ll say two. Maybe three. Here are the top targets we’re going after in the early going.

There is a lot of good local talent this year, so we should be able to get some good ones. Here is the updated scholarship allocation table.