Penn State Football recruiting: O’Brien’s mark being made

New Penn State head coach Bill O’Brien has already began to make his mark on recruiting just three weeks after landing the job.

O’Brien started his recruiting trail by posting a 29 out of 30 on his NCAA recruiting test last week, which he had to pass in order to hit the recruiting trail.

His next job was to land some players, which he did almost immediately,  landing six recruits since being hired back on January 7th. Among the six, three are 3-star recruits and three are 2-star recruits.

In total, Penn State’s current 2012 class, includes 19 commits; three 4-stars and 12 3-star recruits among others according to ESPN. O’Brien will look to add-on to the class in between preparation for the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl appearance in February, but until then, he has a full bye week to spend on recruiting.

Among those prospects still on the radar for the Nittany Lions include No. 1 DT Eddie Goldman (Washington, D.C.), No. 3 Athlete Stefon Diggs (Olney, MD) and No. 23 Athlete Armani Reeves (West Roxbury, MASS). Reeves will visit the Penn State campus on Jan. 27th.

It would be huge for O’Brien and staff to snag a big name recruit to add to a class hurt by the last three months of scandal and coaching turnover. In addition, at Penn State it’s simply no enough to just field a team, the community wants a winner. With time O’Brien should prove to be a good recruiter, he has help with longtime ace Larry Johnson back in the fold moving forward.

As for the time being, the Nittany Lions need to find some playmakers on the outside to replace the graduated Derek Moye. They have some in-house replacements, but for down the road 4-star receiver Eugene Lewis (Plymouth, PA) should be able to step in and fill some of the void. The 6’2 receiver had a good size/speed combination that should suit the Penn State offense well for years to come.

But more importantly, O’Brien needs to find someone to play consistently and effectively from the quarterback position. Junior Matt McGloin and sophomore Rob Bolden were inconsistent at best in the past two years, and the Lions have lacked a dependable quarterback since Darryl Clark graduated three years ago.

Looking at the prospect pool, it’s late in the game for the Lions to find a top-flight option under center, but Steven Bench (Cairo, GA), a 3-star, was a nice get for the new staff to provide some competition for the incumbent signal callers in Happy Valley.

As always, more to come from Happy Valley, follow me on twitter @Duce_90 for Penn State updates.