On December 31st, 2013, Penn State’s head coach at the time, Bill O’Brien, left Penn State and was hired by the Houston Texans. At that time, Penn State had 19 recruits ready to play in the 2014 season. Most people, myself included, thought that a lot of recruits would leave because of O’Brien’s departure. Well, Penn State still has 19 recruits that are ready to play in 2014. That’s rather impressive, I must say. There are a lot of recruits saying that they are dedicated to the program, and that they will stay no matter who the next coach will be.
There are a couple of recruits, four star quarterback Michael O’Connor and four star defensive tackle Thomas Holley included, that are waiting to see who the next coach will be before they make any definite decisions. But overall, Penn State’s 2014 recruiting class is still looking as good as it did the day O’Brien left.
This can be easily ruined though.
January 15th is a very important date; that will be the end of a recruiting dead period. After January 15th, any coach will be able to talk to any recruit no matter what his status is with any team. So if Penn State doesn’t have a coach by the 15th of January then things could get ugly, fast. It does appear that they’re close to hiring former Vanderbilt coach James Franklin though, so hopefully this won’t be a problem.
For more information on all 19 recruits and where their thinking is at right now, click here.
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