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The Official Black Shoe Diaries National Signing Day Primer

Tomorrow will be a fun day. What should you expect from Penn State, and from Black Shoe Diaries?

Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

National Signing Day sits just a mere day away. By tomorrow evening, Penn State will officially be the home of a brand new recruiting class of 2015. The players expected to sign tomorrow are as follows...

Name Position Star Rating High School Height/Weight
John Reid CB ★★★★ St. Joseph's (PA) 5'10"/180
Sterling Jenkins* OT ★★★★ Baldwin (PA) 6'8"/305
Juwan Johnson WR ★★★★ Glassboro (NJ) 6'4"/200
Ryan Bates OL ★★★★ Archbishop Wood (PA) 6'5"/280
Saquon Barkley RB ★★★★ Whitehall (PA) 5'11"/190
Andre Robinson RB ★★★★ Bishop Mcdevitt (PA) 5'9"/205
Steven Gonzalez OG ★★★ Union City (NJ) 6'3"/300
Kamonte Carter ATH ★★★★ Gaithersburg (MD) 6'4"/235
Brandon Polk WR ★★★★ Briar Woods (VA) 5'9"/152
Manny Bowen LB ★★★★ Barnegat (NJ) 6'2"/206
Tommy Stevens* Dual-Threat QB ★★★ Decatur Central (IN) 6'4"/200
Daiquan Kelly ATH ★★★ Union City (NJ) 6'2"/206
Irvin Charles WR ★★★★ Paul VI (NJ) 6'4"/212
Ryan Buchholz DE ★★★★ Great Valley (PA) 6'6"/240
Jake Cooper LB ★★★ Archbishop Wood (PA) 6'1"/220
Jonathan Holland DE ★★★ The Bullis School (MD) 6'4"/240
Ayron Monroe S ★★★ St. John's College (DC) 6'0"/195
Jarvis Miller S ★★★ Suffield (CT) 6'2"/188
Paris Palmer* OT ★★★★ Lackawanna C.C. (PA) 6'8"/305
Garrett Taylor CB ★★★★ St. Christopher's School (VA) 6'1"/195
Shareef Miller DE ★★★ Philadelphia (PA) 6'5"/220
Robert Windsor DT ★★★ Fond Du Lac (WI) 6'5"/278
Nick Bowers TE ★★★ Kittanning (PA) 6'4"/254
John Petrishen S ★★★ Pittsburgh (PA) 6'1"/190

Sterling Jenkins, Tommy Stevens and Paris Palmer all enrolled in the winter, so they will not be participating in the fax bonanza tomorrow, but I'm sure they'll make an appearance in the Lasch Building for the festivities, as well.

Penn State technically still has one open spot left for the 2015 class. The blindly optimistic Penn State fan will say that the staff is keeping it open for a Signing Day flip by Christian Wilkins from Clemson to Penn State. The realistic Penn State fan will say that the spot will be filled by Stanford transfer, OG Kevin Reihner (Scranton, PA). The Penn State fan who enjoys surprises will say that this year's class will be filled by another surprise signing day decision from someone not previously on the radar. All of these types of Penn State fans exist. I won't tell you who to be.

**UPDATE: The final spot has been filled by former Pitt commit, LB Kevin Givens.**

Tomorrow, our early morning coverage will kick off with the welcoming of our three early enrollments. As the faxes start rolling in, every player who signs on tomorrow will be added to our official BSD Draft Board. That board will be the main navigation source for the entire day, as each individual article will not be posted by itself on the front page. The draft board will include cards for each player with some basic information, and will also serve as the clickable link jumps to their feature article, which will break down everything you need to know about them.

I'd like to quickly give a shout out in advance to everyone who helped out with this year'rs coverage. Thank you to Bill DiFilippo, Matt de Bear and Cari Greene for each taking a big part in writing up the articles for the players this year. Thank you to Dave DeAngelo (you touch-a my car, I break-a your face) in helping generate the initial ideas for how the draft board will look. And a HUGE thank you to misdreavus79 for actually building the draft cards for the board. All of these people worked far harder than I could have asked to make this a success, and to make National Signing Day exciting and fun for all of us.

And while we're at it, I'd like to give two more specific shout outs. First, to Matt de Bear. His work since being added to the staff has not only allowed BSD to continue having consistent recruiting coverage, but has added yet another perspective from someone who spent time covering recruiting in his own right over on Victory Bell Rings. Without him around, our recruiting coverage wouldn't be nearly as strong as it has been. The other shout out goes to Bill DiFilippo. Thanks to Bill, all of my plans for National Signing Day are able to come to fruition. So thank you to Bill, for agreeing to be the one to stick around and pump out all of the official signing posts as they roll in.

Tomorrow will be the beginning of a new kind of National Signing Day coverage for Black Shoe Diaries. I hope you come along for the ride.