STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- The signing day frenzy is just about here and while it's taking a new form this year thanks to the new, 72-hour early signing period, many of the signing day staples will still be present. There will be hat picking, pageantry and certainly some drama.
"Hopefully all the guys that are already committed to us will sign on the 20th," Penn State recruiting coordinator Terry Smith said last month. "If they don't, we'll keep working hard to get them to sign in February, so it's an ongoing process and there hasn't been any hitches or hiccups -- knock on wood."
For Penn State, the most dramatic moment figures to be next Wednesday morning when five-star defensive end Micah Parsons will make his college choice. Penn State, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Georgia are all in the running, and whether or not Parsons becomes the 21st member of the 2018 class will be a huge part of next week's big day. Until then, what else is there to know about this class?
1. How will this be any different than the usual signing day in February?
Well, it won't be all that different. Yes, prospects have a 72-hour window that starts on Dec. 20, but if they don't want to sign their binding National Letter of Intent until February then that's also an option. However, don't expect many, if any, of Penn State's 20 verbal pledges to wait until February.
So far, based off all the prospects I've communicated with -- plus many opting to announce their signing day ceremonies on Twitter -- next Wednesday will be very similar to the usual February signing day for the Nittany Lions.
Players will sign their letters and fax them in throughout the day. Most will send their letters in the morning -- revving up those fax machines -- and then hold a ceremony at their school later in the day after the binding letter is already in. I'd expect James Franklin to even have his usual war room set up rolling, though figuring out when Penn State will celebrate this 2018 class is a conversation Smith and many other coaches around the country have had with their respective groups within the past month.
They've still had to roll out the red carpet in the past month for visits as well, making sure nobody changes their mind, which always gives any staff some anxiety.
"We have to make sure we fulfill the process and handle our business and make sure those guys are completely comfortable because other schools are still going to continue to reach out to these guys to make sure they're completely happy," Smith said. "If there's a void in there that maybe a kid isn't happy that we're not contacting him enough, that could open up a door for a kid to jump ship. We've gotta make sure we recruit these guys as if they're not committed and give them our undivided attention as we did before they committed."
This is also the ideal scenario for Penn State's coaching staff, one that is striving to get at least 90 percent of these 2018 verbal pledges to sign next week. They've been recruiting these kids in some cases for years, so Penn State's thinking is this: if they've done everything in their power up to this point to recruit the prospect, gotten to know his family, explained how he fits in the program and why they want him, the commitment should be locked up next week and there won't be any need to drag it out until February. This means no surprises for the staff come February and also no surprises for the prospects who could be enticed by other schools.
"We'd love to sign 90 percent of the guys that way that 10 percent focuses on however many available scholarships we have for this year's class and then January becomes the full 2019 recruitment," Smith said last month. "It allows us to get ahead and figure out who those top '19 prospects are to start making inroads with those guys."
2. Who are the early enrollees?
So far linebacker Jesse Luketa, linebacker Nick Tarburton, safety Isaiah Humphries, tight end Zack Kuntz and defensive lineman Judge Culpepper are the Lions who plan to arrive on campus in January. I spoke with Humphries this week and will have more on him in the coming days. The challenge of early enrolling is something that some high schools don't allow, but Humphries, whose father, Leonard, played at Penn State, said he's known since he started high school this was something he wanted to do.
The benefits to early enrolling are notable as cornerback Lamont Wade did so last year and saw the field this season. It's no guarantee that an early enrollee will play as a true freshman -- in fact it's far from the case -- but the Lions could have some depth issues at linebacker next season and getting Luketa and Tarburton here early to start speeding up the process is certainly beneficial.
Franklin will meet with the media this Friday so surely the status of starting linebacker Manny Bowen, who has been suspended the past three games and was suspended for last year's Rose Bowl, will be a topic of discussion. Bowen's availability moving forward will have a big impact on the future of the linebacking corps.
Getting these new players through a winter in the strength and conditioning program is key, and getting a six-month jump on their classmates will help as they make the gradual transition to college and college football.
3. Who is Penn State waiting on?
I calculated Penn State's scholarships per position last week and had the Lions at 86, but don't be alarmed by that since there always is offseason movement. Parsons will let his intentions be known next Wednesday, but defensive end Jayson Oweh, another high-priority prospect for the Lions, won't announce his pledge until the Under Armour All-America game on the afternoon of Jan. 4 in Orlando. Defensive end Tyreke Smith will announce his pledge at the same game.
It shouldn't come as a surprise then that Franklin and defensive line coach Sean Spencer were in New Jersey on Wednesday to pay Oweh a visit.
Thanks for visiting Blair Academy today @coachjfranklin and @SpenceChaos . Always great to spend time with such great people. @JaysonOweh pic.twitter.com/hvq15j1bzO
— Jim Saylor (@SaylorBlairFB) December 13, 2017
While Parsons, Oweh and Smith are the big three still out there and they're high atop Penn State's wish list, there's still 4-star legacy receiver Solomon Enis who has yet to pick a school. It's unclear when Enis will sign and -- given his family's ties to Penn State where his dad, Curtis, was of course a standout -- whether or not Enis comes to school on the East Coast is still yet to be determined. Enis resides in Phoenix, Arizona, close enough to the Lions' Fiesta Bowl site of course, but with receivers Justin Shorter and Daniel George long onboard with Penn State, the Lions could have bigger needs to fill than at receiver.
Depending on how the class shakes out likely determines where Enis ends up and, with an impressive high school career behind him, that's a great spot for Penn State to be in.
4. Will there be a second safety in the mix?
Penn State rescinded an offer from former verbal pledge Isheem Young after he was arrested earlier this month for allegedly robbing a South Philadelphia Wawa last summer. That leaves Humphries as the lone safety in the class and, for the time being, I wouldn't be too surprised if that's how it stays. Kwantel Raines, a West Virginia pledge and Aliquippa standout who was long on Penn State's radar, took his official visit to West Virginia last weekend as planned, so it doesn't look like there will be any movement there.
With Penn State losing both starting safeties after the Fiesta Bowl, it still leaves them with Nick Scott, Ayron Monroe, Garrett Taylor, Jonathan Sutherland, John Petrishen and Humphries. Scott and Monroe have experience, Taylor was a key special teams player and Sutherland, coming off his redshirt season, was among the scout team standouts this season. They like what they have in Sutherland in terms of a young, physical player who could contribute early in his career, which likely makes this need not as pressing as it looks on paper.
5. Fun facts to know
• Defensive tackle pledge PJ Mustipher is the brother of Sam Mustipher, the starting center at Notre Dame. Sam Sr. played his college ball at West Virginia. PJ is also a standout high school wrestler.
• The Humphries family is very close to cornerbacks coach Terry Smith, which makes a lot of sense given that Smith and Leonard were teammates at Penn State.
• The legacy line continues for the Kuntz family as well. Zack, the Lions' tight end pledge, is the younger brother of former Penn State wide receiver Christian Kuntz. The in-state connection certainly was a large part of Zack's attraction to Penn State, the place he used to watch games with his friend Charlie Katshir. Those two will be reunited in Beaver Stadium, but this time on the field as Katshir, a longtime Penn State verbal pledge and a standout linebacker at Cumberland Valley, will make his commitment binding soon, as well.
• In the last few weeks, Franklin paid a visit to Ottawa to check in with the family of Luketa, one of the Lions' linebacker pledges. Luketa, an Ottawa native, attends school at Erie's Mercyhurst Prep. Franklin then swung by Erie to visit with Luketa, who was thrilled that Franklin took the detour to Ottawa to meet with his family.
"It showed just how invested coach Franklin really is and how dedicated he is to me, but not only me, my family too," Luketa told me.
Luketa continues a line of Canadian connections for Penn State, who landed Sutherland last year and defensive lineman Daniel Joseph the year before. Before Franklin's time there was also running back Akeel Lynch, who hails from Toronto.
• Luketa and Humphries, who will be roommates once they enroll early, both finish high school this Friday. While it's an exciting time for them, Humphries recently connected all the dots and realized he won't be signing at his high school next week because his Texas school will be closed for winter break. However, he said the glitz and glam of signing day isn't for him anyhow.
"I didn't even know this until a couple weeks ago, but school ends on Friday for me this week so I'm going to have a small family thing and maybe some people will come over and we'll take a picture or whatever, but other than that it's not really super big for me," Humphries told me. "Some people want to have the flashy videos and all that stuff and yeah, if you want that that's great. When I'm playing I want the TV, the cameras, all that stuff. But for stuff like this with signing, it's cool and all, but you didn't play anything yet, so it doesn't really matter."