Blogging is a funny thing. You may have noticed I slacked off last week as there wasn't much news to talk about. Blogging is somewhat of a leap of faith as you always trust new events will keep happening to give you something to talk about. When you get into slow periods, like last week, you start getting antsy for some news to happen. I woke up this morning with no plan for what I was going to write about. But sometimes you never know what will be waiting for you on the message boards. This morning it was another defensive back.

Fresh off the heels of bring in Darrell Givens and Stephen Obeng-Agyapong Penn State landed another cornerback when Derrick Thomas gave his commitment to Joe Paterno.

According to the recruiting sites Thomas stands six feet tall and weighs 177 lbs with sub-4.5 speed. Scout ranks him a three star prospect while Rivals has not yet given him a star ranking. Thomas was entertaining offers from Maryland, Pitt, and Illinois as well as Penn State. He sited his relationship with Larry Johnson as a major reason why he commited to Penn State.

With Willis, Givens, Obeng-Agyapong, and now Thomas it appears our secondary of the future is taking shape. But not only that, it appears we may have a future captain in this group.

They are the fourth and fifth players to commit for this class. Among the recruits that preceded them was strong safety Malcolm Willis, a teammate of Givens at Lackey who also struck up a friendship with Obeng-Agyapong when they visited Penn State at the same time.

An engaging personality, Willis might be to this year’s Nittany Lion class what Aaron Maybin was a couple of years ago — a player who successful recruits future teammates. Even while he smiled about two of his friends joining him at Penn State, he went on to talk about how they were already trying to get others, like five-star Maryland linebacker Jelani Jenkins.

‘‘I was talking to [Givens] about it for a few weeks. He was already thinking about it,’’ Willis said. ‘‘He told me he was decommitting [from Ohio State]. I said, ‘OK, let’s take it over.’

Does Willis know any offensive players?

It's Mother's Day, but we all got a present this weekend. Two actually, as Penn State has landed verbal commitments  from two highly recruited defensive backs.

Penn State's football program received verbal commitments from a pair of highly rated defensive backs over the weekend.

New York's Stephen Obeng-Agyapong and Maryland's Darrell Givens are now onboard, increasing the Nittany Lions' commitments to five.

Givens had originally committed to Ohio State less than a month ago. He is one of the most highly recruited pure cornerbacks in the country holding offers from Florida, Illinois, Miami, North Carolina, Pitt, Maryland, Rutgers, Virginia, Tennessee, and Boston College.

Givens rushed into a commitment to the Buckeyes after an unofficial visit. His teammate Malcolm Willis committed to Penn State a few weeks later. Could that have come into play? Maybe, but I think Givens was more impressed with our favorable depth chart that will give him the opportunity to play early at Penn State. I'm sure that certain people who swear there is no gentleman's agreement between Big Ten coaches will claim that we just violated it. Whatever. It's pretty obvious since Rodriguez joined the conference that anything goes, so when in Rome...

I can't say I'm too surprised that Obeng-Agyapong picked Penn State. He hails from John Kennedy High School in the Bronx which also produced current Penn State players Stephfon Green, Shaine Thompson, and Nerraw McCormack. He has a somewhat more modest offer list that just included Iowa, Connecticut, and Buffalo, but then the other three kids from JFK didn't get much attention either. Green was a two star recruit that was the media darling of spring practice this year. McCormack ended up at Penn State via the junior college route and Thompson was a walk-on. New York City just isn't considered much of a recruiting hotbed, so kids from that area don't tend to get a lot of attention.

I anticipated six defensive backs in this class: three safeties and three cornerbacks. The count now stands at two safeties and one corner. We're still pursuing some big targets like Corey Brown, Jordan Love, Stephon Morris, Nyshier Oliver, Gerald Hodges, and Abdul Smith. Overall I think we're in good shape for secondary recruiting. Now if we could just get a quarterback and some wide receivers... 

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.