Committany Nation (2.27.15): Junior Day

Junior Day

As many of you are aware, this weekend is Penn State's Junior Day, and is being held exactly a year after the wildly successful 2014 Junior Day that saw commitments from Kamonte Carter, Ryan Bates and Jarvis Miller. Penn State's list of visitors was quite star-studded a year ago, but this year's might be more so. Let's take a look at the big names that will be on campus.

Commits:

CB Lavert Hill (★★★★)

DE Shane Simmons (★★★★)

RB Miles Sanders (★★★★)

2016 Targets:

DT Ellison Jordan (★★★★)

OL Josh Ball (★★★)

LB Khaleke Hudson (★★★)

OT Michal Menet (★★★★)

TE Naseir Upshur (★★★★)

DE Shaka Toney (★★★)

WR Steven Smothers (★★★★)

CB Donnie Corley (★★★★)

WR/S Demetric Vance (★★★)

ILB Avery Roberts

RB Abdul Adams (★★★)

WR Aaron Mathews (★★★★)

2017 Targets:

CB Lamont Wade (★★★★)

There are a ton of other visitors coming this weekend as well, but those are the biggest names to know and the ones that I've confirmed with/seen on twitter. If you want a more comprehensive list of visitors, check out the ones compiled by Sean Fitz at Lions247 and Ryan Snyder at BWI.

This will be a huge weekend for a lot of Penn State's top targets, and could be the most important yet. Penn State finished the season strong with their bowl win over Boston College, but when all is said and done, they still finished with a 7-6 record. Having a strong recruiter like James Franklin is a huge plus, as well as the highly ranked recruiting class that just came in, but success on the field is an important thing for most recruits as well. Showing these kids the best weekends possible is incredibly important when you're competing against the national champions and some other schools who have achieved a lot of success over the past few years. Franklin and the staff surely are looking to pull in at least once commit this weekend, but it might come from someone who has yet to receive an offer.

Other Notes

• I spoke with Quinn Nordin the other day, and he let me know that he's been talking to an expanded list of schools from just Penn State and Iowa lately. He's been hearing from Pitt, Duke and Florida, as well as hearing a lot from Michigan and Michigan State. I still expect him to end up at Penn State (or at least Iowa) after our conversation, but it's something to keep an eye on.
• Trevon Diggs had some extremely interesting comments to share about Maryland and "The Movement" recently, that you should 100% check out. (Spoiler: it sounds pretty good for all non-Maryland teams involved)

Links and Link$

• One of Pennsylvania's top players, Damar Hamlin, has six schools that stand out most to him. Find out where the Lions stand, here.
• Penn State commit Miles Sanders picked up a very big Alabama offer. However, another Penn State commit picked up an Alabama offer after committing to Penn State last year, as well. Juwan Johnson.
• PennLive put together a wish list for the 2016 recruiting class.
• In the latest episode of "Dwayne Haskins: King of Twitter" we speculate on whether Haskins will land at LSU.
• Ohio TE Luke Farrell will visit Penn State.