Some of Penn State football’s coaches will be heading to Western PA Friday.
Brad Everett of the Pittsburgh Union Progress reported early Wednesday afternoon that Penn State’s coaches will be taking in Aliquippa/Penn Hills, as well as Central Catholic/Hempfield.
Hearing Penn State coaches will be in town Friday night to catch a pair of WPIAL games — Aliquippa/Penn Hills and Central Catholic/Hempfield 🏈
— Brad Everett (@BREAL412) September 18, 2024
NSN has confirmed that head coach James Franklin and associate head coach/cornerbacks coach/assistant recruiting coordinator Terry Smith are expected to be at Penn Hills.
Penn State doesn’t have any commits from Penn Hills or Hempfield but has one each from Aliquippa and Central Catholic. Aliquippa RB Tikey Hayes committed to Penn State late last September, and Central Catholic ATH Xxavier Thomas did the same in December. Hayes, a 6-foot-1, 204-pound three-star RB, has been dealing with injury that kept him out of the Quips’ win over Mars Friday and is week-to-week. When he’s healthy, he’s a force.
Hayes’ injury came off a big game against Avonworth. He went for 187 yards on 13 carries and scoring three touchdowns. Each score came in the second quarter.
Thomas is a three-star cornerback who committed to PSU the day after former Central teammates Anthony Speca and Peter Gonzalez signed their letters of intent. Like Gonzalez, who’s father, Peter, started at QB for Pitt in the late 1990s, Thomas comes from a football family. His brother, Rodney, played DB at Yale from 2017-21, then went to the Colts in the 7th round of the 2022 Draft. Rodney Thomas has started 25 games for Indy over his first two seasons— including 15 of 17 last year— and so far has 86 tackles, 10 PBU and 6 INT.
The younger Thomas still has most of his final high school season to play but on Saturday’s he plants to attend every Penn State home game.
Along with the commits, Central and Aliquippa each have talent that Penn State’s been looking at. Aliquippa is 2027 star CB Larry Moon, who Penn State offered in July 2023 before his freshman season. Central has Bradley Gompers, a 6-foot-5, 215-pound OLB. 247Sports has Gompers as the No. 9 overall player in Pennsylvania from his class and the No. 32 linebacker in the country. He’s committed to Duke but Penn State offered him Tuesday.
