Christmas should be about good news. So, if we’re looking for the best news about the Penn State football program right now, it might be this: The Nittany Lions are off to a good start in recruiting for the class of 2022.
It’s very early in the cycle, but Penn State currently is No. 3 nationally in both the 247Sports rankings and the Rivals rankings. Ohio State is No. 1 and LSU No. 2 in the rankings.
The Lions have seven commits, all 4-star guys:
**WR Kaden Saunders
**WR Anthoney Ivey
**Holden Staes
**TE Jerry Cross
**QB Beau Pribula
**OT Drew Shelton
**DE Ken Talley
Penn State’s class is expected to get even stronger on Friday when 4-star athlete Mehki Flowers from Steelton-Highspire High in Harrisburg announces his decision on New Year’s Day. He’s a Penn State lean and widely expected to pick the Lions. Flowers will make his announcement at 3:30 p.m, according to 247Sports.
RELATED: Flowers’ decision coming Friday
I WILL BE COMMITTING TO THE SCHOOL OF MY CHOICE JANUARY 1st , Thank you all… #Blessed pic.twitter.com/WcWYWRgqJy
— Official Mehki Flowers (@Thelandlord2003) December 25, 2020
The class of 2021 was disappointing. There’s no way around it. Sure, there will be a lot of good players from the class. But if you’re a traditional power program trying to compete with Ohio State in the Big Ten East and trying to earn a College Football Playoff berth, having the nation’s No. 22 recruiting class wasn’t getting it done, as James Franklin said a while back.
Penn State landed only one of the top 10 and three of the top 20 prospects in Pennsylvania in the class of 2021, far from the “dominate the state” mantra Franklin is famous for saying.
Well, PSU is dominating the state early in the class of 2022, with four of the 4-star commits from PA: Pribula, Ivey, Talley, Shelton.
The Lions have three of the top 10 and four of the top 12 recruits in PA. And Flowers is No. 4 overall, so that would be another top 10 player in the state if he commits to PSU.
As we’ve pointed out, it’s impressive that Penn State did not lose any commits in the class of 2021 after the team started 0-5. And the Lions also were able to put together an outstanding class in the early going despite their struggles on the field this season.
It’s not quite a Christmas miracle, but all of that is a pretty good Christmas present for James Franklin.
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