This is not a drill. This is an actual verbal commit! In FOOTBALL!!!
Last night about an hour after the game had ended Dick Anderson's cell phone rang. On the other end was Anthony Alosi, a 6'6" 290 lb offensive tackle, calling Anderson to let him know he wanted to play football for Penn State.
At this point not much of known about Alosi. The recruiting services have not evaluated him. He actually graduated high school last May. He had a collection of scholarship offers from some FCS schools, and Penn State had offered him a spot as a preferred walk-on this season, but Alosi rejected those offers and decided to enroll in Princeton Hun Prep School in New Jersey this fall instead.
It was time apparently well spent. Alosi added about 25 lbs of muscle and matured. He only turned 17 during his senior year in high school, so he was a year younger than his classmates. This year he got an offer from UConn and was seeing interest from Boston College, West Virginia, and Maryland, but as soon as the Penn State offer came in he jumped on it.
As you can probably imagine, when Penn State signs a kid that only had offers from UConn, Massachusetts, Tulane, and Richmond there is a predictable band of people on the message boards who jump to label this a wasted scholarship. I'm not saying Alosi is going to be a star, but personally, I like to wait until a kid gets on campus and plays for a few years before I write him off. Obviously there's something there the coaches like, so I like to give them the benefit of the doubt.
While Alosi isn't going to be the major splash this recruiting class needs to get going, he is excited to play for Penn State so we should be excited to have him. We're approaching the home stretch in this recruiting class. There are still some good targets out there that Penn State is in good shape with. Any kind of momentum at this point is a welcome sight.