Penn State hosted many top recruits this past weekend for their Junior Day but no one more highly rated than Samson Okunlola.
Okunlola is a 2023 four-star offensive tackle from Thayer Academy in Massachusetts. Both Rivals and 247 Sports rate him as a Top 60 overall player; Rivals has him at No. 59, while 247 Sports has him up at No. 36. Whatever ranking you want to use, Okunlola is a national recruit that’s being pursued by every major program in the country.
Getting him on campus on Saturday was big deal for the Penn State program.
Courtesy Samson Okunlola
Instead of listing all of his offers, just know that Okunlola is being pursued by Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pitt, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Tennessee, USC, Virginia and West Virginia.
The big 6-foot-5 300-pound offensive tackle tells NSN that he won’t be making a ton of unofficial visits but plans on communicating with a number of schools and doing his proper homework before narrowing things down to his final five. Between now and then, he realizes that part of the deal of being such a highly coveted player is the phone calls, text, direct messages, visits from coaches that go along with it.
“Things are starting to ramp up now as coaches are now more eager for me to come and take more visits,” said Okunlola. “I’m just going to take everything slowly in terms of this recruiting process and my eventual decision. I want to talk to these coaches and really try and get to know them and from there, try and narrow things down to just five and then make my decision on where to go for my official visits. After my officials, I’ll commit if I’m ready, it’s as simple as that.”
“Factors that will be big in my decision will be how the school develops players as both an athlete and as a student,” Okunlola said. “Also, I want to be at a stable coaching staff, the overall vibe I get from the coaching staff and finally, a place that I can get a great education from, which will allow me to be successful after football.”
Courtesy Samson Okunlola
Taking into account that he doesn’t anticipate making a bunch of unofficial visits, having him in State College already is good news for Penn State. Okunlola made the drive to State College and had this critique of what he experienced over the weekend.
“I like what I saw,” said Okunlola. “I really liked how the coaches were and especially how cool and relaxed they were. I felt as though we were able to connect pretty easily. Penn State had really nice facilities and overall, I just had a very good vibe after visiting there. I had a conversation with Coach Trautwein, their offensive line coach. He told me that the staff really likes me as a player and that I would have a really good chance of playing early there.”
The final thing we talked about was his feelings about possibly playing with his brother, Samuel Okunlola, a four-star 2022 defensive end that just signed with Pitt. Is that something that would be important to him?
“I’m hearing from Pitt now, I talked with their offensive line coach last week,” Okunlola said. “Me possibly playing with my brother would be cool and all but, in the end, my decision will come down to me going to the best o-line school possible. I’ll look at Pitt and see if that would be best for me and then go from there. I’m taking everything very slowly.”
As far as future visits, Okunlola tells us that he doesn’t have anything planned for the immediate future.
