Well, we got Mike Zordich and Mike Mauti. That left one more Mike to go. This afternoon Trinity High School linebacker Mike Yancich announced his verbal commitment to play college football for the Penn State Nittany Lions.
Yancich didn't get much attention in the early part of the recruiting season. That's because his teammate was Andrew Sweat, the highly coveted linebacker who committed to Ohio State a few months ago. But Yancich started making a name for himself on the combine and camp circuit. He excelled at the Pittsburgh combine posting a 4.5 forty time, a 4.15 shuttle, a 33 inch verticle, and a 7.02 in the cone drill. Yancich was named to the first team defense at the combine. A few weeks later he showed up at the Penn State Nike Camp and won linebacker MVP honors. That's when he got the offer he had been waiting for. ($$$)
In his junior season Yancich recorded 117 tackles, 4 sacks, 2 INT, and 2 fumble recoveries on his way to being named First Team All-Conference by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Yancich stands 6'2" and weighs 219 lbs. He benches a very impressive 410 lbs and set a state record for weightlifting as a sophomore. Both Rivals and Scout list him as a four star prospect.
With three linebackers giving their verbal this will likely end our linebacker recruiting for this year. Penn State has had one of the greatest two year stretches of linebacker recruiting I think anyone can remember. Last year we brought in Chris Colasanti, Andrew Dailey, and Nate Stupar. With the three Mikes Penn State is now set with solid linebackers through the 2012 season. In fact, we're so loaded you may see one or two of these kids moved to fullback as freshmen just to get them on the field.
Some people will say we're "settling" for this kid because he was a late bloomer and we missed out on Andrew Sweat, but I'm thrilled to have him. Yancich is going to be a good fit for Linebacker U. Now if we could just get a running back.