What did we learn about Penn State on the recruiting trail in April?

Penn State may have picked up just one 2025 commitment in the month of April, but with the class also ahead of most other top programs coming into the month when it comes to overall commitments, that’s not a major surprise. After last year’s 2024 class saw eight players commit in April, some fans have wondered if the Nittany Lions are in a rut currently. However, it’s also important to remember that PSU had just five commitments heading into last year’s run.

The importance of official visits in June will ultimately determine just how good the current class ends up, but the work the staff put in this past month sets them up well for that crucial four-week stretch.

To get a better feel for how the month went, we recap both the good and the bad below.

The Good

Alvin Henderson picks the Lions

– Penn State picked up its highest-ranked 2025 commitment, according to On3’s Industry Rankings, when running back Alvin Henderson announced his decision on April 11. Despite having two running backs already committed, plus only visiting State College for the first time a few days before his announcement, Henderson chose the Nittany Lions over schools like Auburn and Miami.

Now, Ja’Juan Seider and the rest of the staff have just over seven months to keep him on board, as Henderson has also admitted that he’d still like to take official visits to other schools. As of now, Miami still plans to host him for an official visit June 21-23. Auburn is aiming to host him during the season.

New prospects continue to emerge

– April visits helped the staff sort out some contenders from pretenders when it comes to 2025 prospects who have not only moved up the board but could also end up taking official visits to Penn State at some point.

We’re cheating a little bit here, but if you go back to that March 29 visit date, players like tight end Brody Lennon, defensive lineman Tommy Rupley and offensive lineman Amory Hills all now rank highly enough on the board that fans need to pay attention to each. Lennon and Rupley already have official visits locked in.

But beyond that weekend, we also saw players like defensive end Jayden Loftin and offensive lineman Nolan Davenport visit twice in less than two weeks. We also saw three Florida prospects – cornerback Graceson Littleton, safety Rashad Johnson and defensive tackle Randy Adirika – all visit in April and now have official visits locked in.

Strong start with elite 2026 prospect

– It’s been an up-and-down month when it comes to quarterback recruiting (more on that below), but one of the more notable takeaways from the month is how well Penn State has done with 2026 quarterback Dia Bell so far.

After returning to State College for an unofficial visit at the end of March, Bell has made it no secret to multiple reporters that the Nittany Lions currently rank among his top three or four schools as he heads into a pivotal summer.

Bell is currently the second-ranked quarterback in the 2026 class, so this is a massively important prospect who could very well be committed by the start of his junior season. The Nittany Lions have a real chance here.

The Bad

Key in-state misses continue

– There’s only one place to start, as Penn State ended up losing out on in-state quarterback Matt Zollers on April 4. Now ranked as the second-best quarterback in the country by On3 and No. 5 nationally in the Industry Rankings, Zollers surprised some by looking past traditional blue-blood schools like Penn State and Georgia and instead committing to a Missouri squad that’s coming off an excellent 11-2 season but also didn’t have a winning season in the previous four.

Penn State isn’t going to let up on Zollers at all. Even Spring-Ford’s athletic department confirmed on April 24 that both Andy Kotelnicki and Danny O’Brien had dropped by the school to see Zollers. With that said, he’s not going to be easy to flip.

Other important targets commit elsewhere

– Zollers wasn’t the only hit that Penn State took. Overall, there were a handful of talented players that the staff planned to host for official visits in June who ultimately decided to end their recruitments now instead. The most notable of those has to be defensive lineman Trent Wilson from Maryland.

After taking six unofficial visits to Penn State, the Nittany Lions looked to be in a strong position with Wilson, but he ended up announcing on April 10 that he was committing to Oklahoma after just one visit a few weeks prior. We don’t see that happen very often. It also continued a streak of some of the region’s top defensive line prospects electing to go elsewhere.

– Other notable top targets who ended up committing elsewhere in April include wide receivers Romero Ison (USC) and Lotzier Brooks (Alabama), tight ends Nate Roberts (Ohio State) and Hayden Bradley (Ole Miss), as well as defensive lineman Darren Ikinnagbon (Georgia).

Blue-White visitor list is down a bit

The Blue-White Game has arguably been the most consistent event over the years when it comes to commitments.

Dating back to when James Franklin took over the program, Penn State had landed a player every year since Zech McPhearson in April 2015. Of course, in-person recruiting was shut down in 2020 and 2021, but between C.J. Thorpe and Robert Martin (2016), Nana Asiedu (2017), Caedan Wallace (2018), Cole Brevard (2019), Jameial Lyons (2022) and Caleb Brewer (2023), the Nittany Lion staff had an excellent streak going.

Not only did that end this year, but the overall list was also down. Following updated rankings, Nolan Davenport and Randy Adirika now hold four-star ratings, but they were both three-star prospects at the time. In fact, all of the uncommitted 2025 prospects who attended the game were three-star prospects a few weeks ago.

Now, to be fair, Penn State hosted a very strong list of prospects for practice visits in the four weeks leading up to the spring game. The list of 2026 prospects who visited for the game was also very good. It was still a solid weekend for the staff, but when you just compare the list to some previous years, it didn’t feature some of the splashier names we’ve seen before.