This weekend Penn State landed their seventh verbal commitment for the class of 2012 when Baltimore, MD lineman Brian Gaia called the coaches and let them know. Gaia is the fourth defensive lineman to already commit to the Lions.
The 6'3" 290 lb prospect is listed as a three-star player on both Scout.com and Rivals.com and sports an impressive offer list that includes Boston College, Iowa, Maryland, Pitt, Rutgers, Virginia, and West Virginia. And as an added bonus, he also holds an offer from that bastion of eliteness, Virginia Tech. He was also seeing interest from Alabama and LSU.
All of the other schools offered Gaia as an offensive lineman. Penn State is the only school to offer him as a defensive lineman. I'm not sure how he feels about that, but Penn State was reportedly his favorite school growing up. Doing the math, he was probably about 12 years old in 2005, so it's nice to see we're getting to the point where the kids we're recruiting were too young to remember that awful stretch from 2000-2004.
I have to think there's maybe one more spot available on the defensive line. So come on down, Mr. Spence.
Congratulations, Mr. Gaia, and welcome to Penn State.