Not good news for Penn State and Pitt


                          ... their draft classes were not impressive
For those football fans of either Penn State or Pitt, you should step back and analyze their draft classes before giving yourself hope for the future. 
Coach James Franklin of Penn State did keep most of Penn State's signees, losing only one four-star recruit from the O'Brien days. However, take a look at the class overall.
According to ESPN's rankings, Penn State had only one signee in the top 200. Pitt did not have any. 
In fact, Alabama, the number one class, had 13 players higher than the top PSU recruit, number 73, De'Andre Thompkins, a defensive back.
The picture is worse for Pitt. Their highest signee was number 151, Adonis Jennings, who is a wide receiver. They also signed Alex Bookser (154) from Mount Lebanon, who is an offensive tackle. 
Penn State's other top 200 signees are Saeed Blacknail (118), a wide receiver; Michael O'Connor (132), a quarterback; and Chris Goodwin (159), a wide receiver.
Here is the good news for Pitt. Their superb freshman receiver, Tyler Boyd of Clairton, was ranked just 167th last year by ESPN, so many times these are not accurate.
This ranking system is often prone to error. Many times athletes are not highly ranked and yet do well in college. It is similar to the NFL draft system. Many number one picks are poor, despite all of their research. 
Here is where the system worked. Christian Hackenberg, the Penn State QB who passed for just under 3,000 yards as a freshman, was a five-star recruit. The system worked for him. Franklin has to hope that he has some great receivers in this class to help their QB over the next few years.

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