Lions lose star recruit

April 24, 2017

Coming off the high of one of the biggest recruiting weekends in several years, Penn State football was hit by a gut-punch on Sunday night when Harrisburg defensive end Micah Parsons — the Nittany Lions’ top-ranked pledge in the nation’s second-rated class — announced that he was decommitting. “I feel like this is the best decision for me and my family,” Parsons posted on Twitter. “They are still one of my top schools but I just feel like I committed too soon and I needed to focus on this upcoming football season!” A five-star prospect and three-time all-state ...

Sidelines are filled with PSU’s future

April 23, 2017

By Philip Cmor pcmor@altoonamirror.com UNIVERSITY PARK — If building depth was the theme for the Penn State football team during spring practice, it certainly appears to have crossed over the recruiting side, too. The Nittany Lions’ lost a highly-regarded offensive tackle prospect on Friday, but, before they even kicked off the Blue-White Game on Saturday afternoon, they had replaced him with two more — one of them a much more highly-rated prospect. A huge recruiting day that including more than 100 high school players converging on Beaver Stadium and more than 20 with Penn ...

NE PA tackle changes mind

April 22, 2017

pcmor@altoonamirror.com One the eve of its annual Blue-White Game, the Penn State football has lost one of its 2018 verbal commitments. “After many months of discussions with my family I came to the decision it is in my best interest to Re-Open my recruitment and Decommit from Penn State,” Wyoming Valley West four-star offensive tackle Chris Bleich posted on his Twitter page on Friday. A 6-foot-6, 305-pounder, Bleich was one of the first members of the Nittany Lions’ 2018 recruiting class, pledging on April 7, 2016. However, he seemed to be having second thoughts almost ...

PSU gets Texas DB

March 30, 2017

It’s shaping up that Penn State’s secondary might feel a lot like the Lone Star State in a couple of years. With rising senior legacy safety prospect Isaiah Humphries of Sachse, Texas having committed to the Nittany Lions on New Year’s Eve, Penn State added another defensive back pledge from the football rich state on Wednesday morning, when three-star corner Trent Gordon of Manvel High School announced he would become 12th member of the Big Ten champion’s 2018 recruiting class in a video he posted to Twitter. “No excuses. Achievement. Never underestimate the heart of the ...

New recruit offers defensive versatility

February 10, 2017

By Philip Cmor pcmor@altoonamirror.com Linebacker U added another linebacker to its 2018 recruiting class on Thursday. Or maybe he’s a defensive end. Or a defensive tackle, perhaps. The point is, wherever he lines up, Pennridge’s Nick Tarburton is a heck of a prospect. On the first two plays of Tarburton’s junior highlight tape, the Class 6A first-team all-state selection not only decleats opposing ballcarriers, he hit them so hard in the backfield that their helmets were knocked off. A few plays later, a blocker got his hands on Tarburton. Tarburton discarded the ...

PSU class deemed ‘terrific’

February 5, 2017

Winning cures a lot of ills. The consensus heading into the 2017 recruiting cycle was that James Franklin and his Penn State football staff could recruit, but that the Nittany Lions were going to have to show they could get it done on the field to take that next step in interesting and bringing top prep talent into the program. Usually, it takes a year or so for that impact to be felt. With this year’s Big Ten championship season, though, Penn State seemed to have sped up the process. “This felt kind of different, the latter half of the season. The whole feeling was completely ...