Be All You Can Be? Penn State Recruiting

There are many Penn State fans that complain about Penn State recruiting.

Some say that having a head coach that doesn't pay visits to the recruits is intolerable. Some say we take in too many "projects" (sleepers that are not ranked very high but the coaches "know" they will be very good—for example: Evan Royster).

Others say we don't go out of state enough (this year we have offered as far away as California) and some say we lose the in state players to out of state universities. Some say we "shoot to low."

I would like to discuss the question: Are we really going after the best players in the county?

Let's ask the question a different way: If you got 100 percent of all the best players you offered, how good of a team would you have?

There are some assumptions I have made: Not all players are ranked yet (they might come from a small school or an area with few residents and therefore not get the recognition they deserve).

These NR players I have not taken into account at all. Any player ranked below three stars, I have not taken into account.

I will not take into account the "balance" of the recruiting class (it would be no good to take 20 five-star wide receivers since you probably would have a poor everything else since you invested all your eggs in one basket).

I also have not taken into account the "needs" of the recruiting class (no use getting a WR when you desperately need an OL).

I do not take into account the total number of offers because the amount of scholarships each school can give out varies from year to year.

I only took into account players that received an offer from the selected school. (If  it comes to pass that a four-star recruit plays for a school without an offer (i.e. scholarship) it's not in the calculations, and if it happens, I'll probably have to jump off the refrigerator onto my head).

I am out to check, "Are we going for the gold or are we settling for less even before we start?"

For this exercise I have compared PSU to the big guns in four of the biggest conferences. (Compiled from Scout.)

School	5 stars	4 stars	3 stars
PSU	2	9	12	Big 10
OSU	5	9	3	Big 10
Florida	9	40	24	SEC
USC	7	26	5	PAC-10
TEXAS	6	15	8	Big-12

What percent of four- and five-stars players does each school offer compared to the total (see the previous table).

School	%
PSU	48
OSU	82
Florida	67
USC	86
TEXAS	67

As we can see here PSU is the last of the bunch and by a considerable margin.

Now let's take just five-star offers against the whole

School	%
PSU	9
OSU	29
Florida	12
USC	18
TEXAS	20

Again PSU is the lowest of the bunch.

If the class of 2010 was 15 offers and the same for all the schools, the table would look like this:

School	5 stars	4 stars	3 stars
PSU	2	9	4
OSU	5	9	1
Florida	9	6	0
USC	7	8	0
TEXAS	6	9	0

Again PSU is no prize.

Penn State has started with one five-star player, three four-star players, and one three-star player.

This is a auspicious start, but it doesn't change the fact that PSU does not seem to have enough confidence in their schools attractions.

I think that the complaint that we "shoot to low" in recruiting is justified. If we were diamond hunters we probably would try to find diamonds in Pottstown!!