are we recruiting lower ranked players today than say prior to JoePa teams? the recruit rankings of the players on the roster and even over the last few years look to be pretty high. I know we had some tremendous classes under JoePa, but are the current players just not as talented as what we used to get? I remember some years where we could just move people off the ball especially running out the clock. That is not something I recall us doing much recently.
Penn State OL recruits on roster vs the "old days"
- Thread starter blion72
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I don't think we are recruiting lower ranked players. Rashad Walker was top 100-120, so was Caeden Wallace and Saleem Wormley. Scruggs was a 4 star, Bates, Menet and McGivern were big time recruit. But it does not seem to translate into on field performance.
IMHO Craig Cirbus and Dick Anderson were elite OL coaches who developed guys. I recall many OL at PSU in the 80s and 90s who were not elite recruits but had really good PSU careers. I am thinking of guys like Bob Jaggers, Dave Laube, Pete Speros, Bill Contz, Jim Romano. I think one of the common denominators of these guys was they were smart and could move. I can't really recall the last PSU OL who could truly be described as athletic; maybe Urschel? I think perhaps PSU is a bit too rigid in the physical characteristics it is looking for in its OL.
IMHO Craig Cirbus and Dick Anderson were elite OL coaches who developed guys. I recall many OL at PSU in the 80s and 90s who were not elite recruits but had really good PSU careers. I am thinking of guys like Bob Jaggers, Dave Laube, Pete Speros, Bill Contz, Jim Romano. I think one of the common denominators of these guys was they were smart and could move. I can't really recall the last PSU OL who could truly be described as athletic; maybe Urschel? I think perhaps PSU is a bit too rigid in the physical characteristics it is looking for in its OL.
Bates is pretty athletic. Do you remember him running down the field with Barkley at Purdue looking to hit someone?
I think scheme and offensive philosophy has to have something to do with it? At least that’s what my untrained thinking is. Some of these guys are playing on Sundays after not playing great at PSU. I have no other answer. It doesn’t seem like it matters who the OC or OL coach is, it’s the same result. Mediocre at best. Frustrating to watch. I will say this though. If you go back and watch some of the games last year, the RBs missed the hole or had poor vision quite frequently last year. It made the OL look even worse than it was.
Rightly or wrongly I go back to the game against Michigan in 1993. I think it was the first Big Ten game ever for Penn State. Our athletic lineman had a tough time near the goal line that day. Granted, that line was awesome in 1994 but, I thought that game in 1993 changed our recruiting philosophy to big is better and their lines have not been dominant since. There have been high profile, highly "rated" recruits that have stunk. I have no data, just my own biased opinion here
The first Big Ten Game as a member was 9/4/1993 against Minny at the Beav. I still have the commemorative coin somewhere.
PSU hasn't had consistently strong OL play since the mid-90's, and that short coming was a major factor in Joe's "dark years." Under Joe, S&C coaches and OL coaches were the board whipping boys. I don't see much on S&C anymore, so the most frequent target of criticism is the staff and the players themselves.
It's hard to compare recruiting classes from the years when having a good OL at PSU was all but a given with recruiting over the past 25 years since recruiting services were not on the scale we have today, and those that did exist were much more regional. The OL play in the early 80's was strong, but it's not really possible to go back to recruiting publications from the late 70's to see if those lines were made up of more highly regarded recruits than we get today. Focusing on the last 25 years, it seems that PSU has signed a number of highly rated recruits that just didn't pan out or were just "okay" when the recruiting hype had us expecting something much more. There were a few years that we recruited the position poorly, but I think the bigger problem is that what we saw in the fall was not as good as what we thought we were getting on signing day. Why? I have no idea.
Agree 100% The OL was poor but the RB play compounded the problem. I don’t think
I saw a single play last year where a RB showed any burst and got through a small
hole. They all looked like they were running in mud. Hopefully, that changes with Singleton and Allen.
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