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Fading at the finish: Despite late issues, Franklin likes class

UNIVERSITY PARK – Penn State football coach James Franklin did his best impression of his elusive, five-star running back recruit Miles Sanders in trying to sidestep a question about the reasons the Nittany Lions found themselves scrambling to finish out their 2016 class at his letter-of-intent signing day press conference at Beaver Stadium Wednesday afternoon.

“What I’d prefer to do is to focus on the progress. I’d like to focus on the last two recruiting classes that were clearly two of the better recruiting classes in the last five years. I know you (in the media) don’t want to talk about that, but I’d love to talk about that,” Franklin said. “I’d like to talk about all the significant positive things that are going on in our program.

“I’d like to talk about is all the tremendous progress, all the great families and all the great football players that are joining our family, and that’s our focus.”

That might be the focus, but, in the broader scope of things, it doesn’t really give a complete reflection of what happened with Lion recruiting this season.

Penn State signed 20 players on Wednesday, and, to be fair, some of them are universally recognized as outstanding prospects, like Sanders, the nation’s top-rated running back, defensive end Shane Simmons guard Michal Menet and center Connor McGovern. The Lions landed two players that were Gatorade players of their year in their respective states – New York quarterback Jake Zembiec and Massachusetts tight end Danny Dalton – and they addressed a pressing need with four well-regarded offensive linemen.

However, signing day went much like the rest of the last month has for the Nittany Lions. Penn State signed one player who hadn’t been committed before Tuesday night in unheralded junior college defensive tackle Brenan Thrift. However, four-star safety Andrew Pryts, who is from Pennsylvania and whose father played for Penn State, changed his mind about a verbal commitment he made before the season to sign with Stanford – he was the sixth player to decommit from the Lions over the last six weeks.

And Philadelphia linebacker Shaka Toney looked like he might switch to Pitt until he confirmed on Tuesday night he still was signing with the Lions.

Meanwhile, four-star cornerback Lavert Hill, verbally committed to the Lions for most of 2015, signed with Michigan, and Ohio four-star Brendan Ferns, who seemed to be assured of early playing time when looking at Penn State’s depth chart, instead decided to attend West Virginia.

The class that had 20 commitments and was ranked among the top three in the country when Penn State opened the season against Temple finished ranked between 18 and 22 by the four major scouting websites. Three players that originally committed to Penn State ended up signing with Big Ten rival Michigan, as did New Jersey defensive tackle Rashan Gary, the country’s top recruit. Clairton’s Aaron Mathews flipped to Pittsburgh, which also signed Lion cornerback target Damar Hamlin.

A number of factors contributed to the way things played out. Mathews wanted to play receiver instead of safety, and Pitt is going to give him that chance. Penn State missed out on four-star Florida receiver Tre Nixon after making him a priority for a year because apparently he wanted to stay in the south. Philadelphia four-star defensive tackle Karamo Dioubate wound up decommitting and picking Temple because seemingly he wanted to stay close to home. North Carolina defensive tackle Christian Colon and the Lions parted ways likely because of off-field concerns. Penn State reportedly could have landed McKeesport defensive athlete Khaleke Hudson during the summer but was caught in a numbers game because it had so many commitments; it hesitated, Hudson’s recruiting blew up after the season, and he ended up with Michigan.

The Lions finished 7-6 and changed three assistant coaches since December, sometimes coaches that had built relationships with players, like Pryts with Bob Shoop, who left to become defensive coordinator at Tennessee. And Franklin has spoken recently about other schools negatively recruiting against Penn State.

Even the positive-minded Franklin had to admit it didn’t go quite according to plan.

“We’ve been pretty fortunate over our last five years not to have a lot of drama. We pretty much knew who was coming and who wasn’t beforehand,” Franklin said. “This year was a little bit different from that perspective.”

In fact, five members of the class came on board just this week, including Thrift, a 6-foot-3, 270-pound defensive tackle who played high school ball for Lion assistant coach Terry Smith at Gateway before moving on to Lackawanna, a junior college in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Thrift had three sacks in five games this season. He visited Idaho a few weeks ago and also reportedly had an offer from Central Florida. He will have three years of eligibility with Penn State.

“We’re not looking for him to come in and be a developmental guy. We’re looking for him to come in and contribute,” said Smith, who coordinates Penn State’s recruiting on the defensive side of the ball. “He’s a high-motor guy. He plays really hard.”

Penn State’s last three and four of the last five recruits in this class were on the defensive side of the ball. On Tuesday, the Lions got verbal commitments from junior college defensive tackle Tyrell Chavis and three-star Cleveland-area cornerback Anthony “T.J.” Johnson.

“We took two junior college defensive tackles. We felt those guys could make an impact (immediately),” Smith said. “On the back end with T.J. Johnson, we felt he had really good length, something we need more of. He’s a good athlete that challenges routes and is a good tackler.”

Defensive tackle was considered an area of need in this class. At one point, Penn State had four commitments there, only to lose three and essentially have to start again with a month to go before signing day.

The Lions might have gotten a good one with Chavis, though. He has a terrific combination of size and explosiveness, a four-star rating from at least one recruiting service and even had SEC offers. Academics seemed to be the question holding him back from being recruited at an even higher level, and Smith said everything was in order now from that respect.

“We made sure of that. We dotted the ‘i’ and crossed the ‘t’ in that situation,” Smith said.

At one point, it looked like Penn State might bring in as many as 25 recruits this year. By signing almost a half-dozen fewer, the Lions bouyed what was going to be a very small scholarship pool in 2017, and, according to director of player personnel Andy Frank were not going to reach this year.

“You’re always trying to keep guys that are above your line that can help you win. We don’t want to ever dip below that,” Frank said. “That was kind of our task toward the end, to figure out who are those guys.”

Several players were well above that line. Sanders, from Woodland Hills, is the consensus No. 1 running back in the class.

“He’s a talented player. He’s fast. He’s explosive. He’s got great short-area quickness. He can make you miss. He can break tackles. He’s got strong legs, very powerful. He catches the ball well,” offensive recruiting coordinator Josh Gattis said. “He’s a well-rounded back. We’re really excited about him.”

The Lions did well on the offensive side. They also brought in Zembiec, who is one of four members of the class that enrolled early, along with two linemen, not including the highly-rated Menet and New Jersey tackle Will Fries.

“Being able to be a part of our team workouts (Tuesday) morning and watching him compete out there was special, because, as freshmen coming in as midyear guys, you don’t really know where their work ethic is at, what their conditioning is,” Gattis said, “but he hung in the pack.”

There is less consensus about Penn State’s defensive signees, although Maryland end Shane Simmons, Maryland tackle Ellison Jordan and Maryland linebacker Cameron Brown are well-regarded by all the scouting services; Simmons could be a special player.

“His speed rush off the edge, we feel he is going to be a problem for those (offensive) tackles,” Smith said of Simmons. “He just has that great speed and athleticism and great hands to get those offensive linemen off of him.”

Penn State also was able to address both kicking spots with blue-chippers, signing punter Blake Gillikin and place-kicker Alex Barbir, both from Georgia.

It was a rough ride, but the Lions still managed to come out with a number of things of which to feel good.

“If you take everything into consideration,” Franklin said. “I think we did really well.”

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