Penn State landed their 13th verbal commitment for the class of 2009 today when Adam Gress of West Mifflin, PA committed to the Nittany Lions. The massive 6'7" 294 offensive tackle held impressive offers from Michigan, Rutgers, and West Virginia, but ultimately it only came down to two schools.
"I’m pretty much done with all my camps and that stuff actually," Gress explained. "I’ve actually slimmed down my list a lot. I’ve got some favorites and some schools that are left in the background."I’ve really slimmed it down to two schools. It’s pretty much Penn State and West Virginia now. You know, both offers were pretty recent and some things are up in the air. I’m just thinking about what I like or don’t like about each of them. When both of them offered it was like, ‘Wow, that’s good to hear.’ After seeing them I really like them and they’re both sort of hometown schools. That’s really why I like them."
Gress was slow in getting his offers, but he was a warrior on the camp trail this spring picking up offers everywhere he went. Both recruiting services list him as a three star prospect.
I had a chance to watch his film and I came away very impressed. He locks on his assignment and really drives them back or turns them out in the running game. He has excellent feet and shows good athletic ability in pulling down the line or getting to the linebackers in the second level. His pass blocking looks like it might need some work as he tends to get too upright once in a while, but I'm sure some coaching can fix that. He's a keeper in my opinion.
Along with Shrive and Arcidiacono we have three excellent tackles for this class. Along with Howle and Figueroa I would say our offensive line class is coming along quite nicely. I would project we probably take one more kid, and I suspect he already has a brother on the team.