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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering the toughest loss I ever experienced in approximately a quarter-century of coaching football. George Pasierb was a great coaching adversary.

Image
R.I.P. George Pasierb, 1946-2020 Shade-Central City High School football coach Photo: Tribune-Democrat No high school football fan could ask for anything better than this. On a beautiful sunny, warm afternoon on Saturday, October 30, 1982, in Nanty Glory, Pa., the battle featured a clash of two undefeated titans of the Appalachian Conference.  One was the preseason unanimous favorite to win the title, the other a veritable surprise that season, one that had built an 8-0 record entering that game.  This battle lived up to the pre-game hype, ending in a one-point decision that was not certain until the final play of the game.  I thought of this because the coach of the powerful Shade-Central City High School Panthers, George Pasierb, passed away earlier this week. He coached the Panthers for 20 years, but his best team was arguably that 1982 team that battled the Blacklick Valley Vikings on that Saturday afternoon before more than 3,000 ebullient fans.  And, the one-po...
Read more

Why did Tennessee-Chattanooga hire trainer Tim Bream despite his role in the alcohol-induced death of Tim Piazza at a Penn State frat?

Image
… was a live-in advisor at the fraternity On paper, Tim Bream has an impressive resume. Actually, very impressive — up to a point. That seems to be when Bream’s life appears to careen out of control. Bream, who resigned as Penn State trainer in Feb.,  was a graduate of Penn State with a bachelor’s degree in physical education, specializing in athletic training. He then attended West Virginia as a grad assistant trainer, where he received a master’s degree in Physical Education with an emphasis on Sports Science. All of this information is from his bio on the Penn State athletic site. He then worked his way up the ladder impressively, working at Syracuse, Vanderbilt, and finally at the University of Richmond, where he was the Director of Sports Medicine and Head Athletic Trainer. Then he received his big break, being name as Assistant Athletic Trainer for the Chicago Bears in 1993, and four years later, Head Athletic Trainer. He was with the Bears for 19 years when inexplicably,...
Read more

Why did Mike Tomlin start hiring black coaches after 15 years?

Image
Brian Flores … hiring Flores probably rankled Goodell To place this into context, understand that the only reason that the Steelers hired Mike Tomlin 15 years ago is because he was black.  Why? He had never even been a coordinator anywhere, never in the NFL. The only reason that he was interviewed was because of the “Rooney Rule.” That rule is one named after the late Dan Rooney who led the effort to force every NFL team to interview at least one black coach when it had head coaching openings.  The Steelers had focused their coaching search after Bill Cowher left on Ron Rivera, then a defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears. Their interview with Tomlin was a peremptory one, something to satisfy the smell test.  After all, why interview a guy who was just a defensive coach? Coordinators are the people who are hired for the big gig.  Tomlin, though, is a great talker, and he wooed Dan Rooney so much that he was hired for the position.  Which begs the q...
Read more