2026 Recruiting Class Thread

[Lazy Dave]

Rivals has always been a joke, which is why I NEVER quote their numbers/ratings

Interesting thing now is that, as far as I can tell, it's the on3 scouts using the Rivals name.

How does Huhn drop out after being invited to the Elite 11 finals?

Good question. I didn't do a count of how many QBs were in the top 300. As for their ratings, they bumped him down to 33 out of QBs. Their composite has him at 17.

 

[Bison13]

Sieg hasn’t been out at all these combine events and things and the stuff that he is going to he’s playing quarterback because that’s what his high school team needs him to do.

 

[RickinDayton]

Sieg hasn’t been out at all these combine events and things and the stuff that he is going to he’s playing quarterback because that’s what his high school team needs him to do.

Seig is an excellent athlete and is going to do very well as a college Safety.

 

[Bison13]

Seig is an excellent athlete and is going to do very well as a college Safety.

Yep, he’s just a phenomenal athlete. Football, basketball, baseball and track. I haven’t talked to any of my people back that way who are family friends of his but I’m pretty sure that he’s at least still playing basketball with his high school buddies and running track, but I think he gave up baseball. Either way, Penn State was the offer that he always wanted so once he got that he wasn’t worried about hitting the summer circuit to gain stars or rating points. It’ll end up, hurting his ranking, and ultimately the teams recruiting ranking because that’s what those recruiting services do, they knock kids who stop paying the money to go to these things.

 

[RickinDayton]

Yep, he’s just a phenomenal athlete. Football, basketball, baseball and track. I haven’t talked to any of my people back that way who are family friends of his but I’m pretty sure that he’s at least still playing basketball with his high school buddies and running track, but I think he gave up baseball. Either way, Penn State was the offer that he always wanted so once he got that he wasn’t worried about hitting the summer circuit to gain stars or rating points. It’ll end up, hurting his ranking, and ultimately the teams recruiting ranking because that’s what those recruiting services do, they knock kids who stop paying the money to go to these things.

At this point, as you stated, the coaches know what this young man can do. My personal opinion: this young man was a recruiting steal and I'm glad he's not on the camp circuit!

 

[ryoder1]

Yep, he’s just a phenomenal athlete. Football, basketball, baseball and track. I haven’t talked to any of my people back that way who are family friends of his but I’m pretty sure that he’s at least still playing basketball with his high school buddies and running track, but I think he gave up baseball. Either way, Penn State was the offer that he always wanted so once he got that he wasn’t worried about hitting the summer circuit to gain stars or rating points. It’ll end up, hurting his ranking, and ultimately the teams recruiting ranking because that’s what those recruiting services do, they knock kids who stop paying the money to go to these things.

Great points and a good reason why you can't take all these ratings as absolute fact. Yes they are accurate for the most part but this example with Sieg is good. Also how does Huhn drop? That seems suspect.

In my opinion we need to step up the D Line recruiting. Second would be WR recruiting. I think all other positions are solid. Our '26 WRs could end up being very good though. Brown is highly rated and Rogers is on the rise and Keys I think could be underrated.

If we can develop some of our high 3 stars into 4 star level players by the time they are ready then this closes the gap in these recruiting rankings pretty considerably by the time these guys are starters. I want to be higher than #16 and we should be for the '27 class but I don't believe we need to be a perennial top 5 recruiting class to have a shot at a NC. I think finishing 7 or 8 one cycle and then be around 9-12 other years should be enough as long as we develop the talent better than other programs and use the portal smartly and strategically.

 

[Sherriff Coffee]

Great points and a good reason why you can't take all these ratings as absolute fact. Yes they are accurate for the most part but this example with Sieg is good. Also how does Huhn drop? That seems suspect.

In my opinion we need to step up the D Line recruiting. Second would be WR recruiting. I think all other positions are solid. Our '26 WRs could end up being very good though. Brown is highly rated and Rogers is on the rise and Keys I think could be underrated.

If we can develop some of our high 3 stars into 4 star level players by the time they are ready then this closes the gap in these recruiting rankings pretty considerably by the time these guys are starters. I want to be higher than #16 and we should be for the '27 class but I don't believe we need to be a perennial top 5 recruiting class to have a shot at a NC. I think finishing 7 or 8 one cycle and then be around 9-12 other years should be enough as long as we develop the talent better than other programs and use the portal smartly and strategically.

Yep. the premier teams have recruited well at all 22 positions. We've been especially bad at recruiting great QBs. Allar is the best QB we've had since Collins. We always seem to have a positional weakness or two.

 

[ryoder1]

Yep. the premier teams have recruited well at all 22 positions. We've been especially bad at recruiting great QBs. Allar is the best QB we've had since Collins. We always seem to have a positional weakness or two.

Have high hopes for Grunk although Smolik has challenged him but hopefully both are very good. Grunk was highly rated as is Huhn.

 

[GregInPitt]

Great points and a good reason why you can't take all these ratings as absolute fact. Yes they are accurate for the most part but this example with Sieg is good. Also how does Huhn drop? That seems suspect.

In my opinion we need to step up the D Line recruiting. Second would be WR recruiting. I think all other positions are solid. Our '26 WRs could end up being very good though. Brown is highly rated and Rogers is on the rise and Keys I think could be underrated.

If we can develop some of our high 3 stars into 4 star level players by the time they are ready then this closes the gap in these recruiting rankings pretty considerably by the time these guys are starters. I want to be higher than #16 and we should be for the '27 class but I don't believe we need to be a perennial top 5 recruiting class to have a shot at a NC. I think finishing 7 or 8 one cycle and then be around 9-12 other years should be enough as long as we develop the talent better than other programs and use the portal smartly and strategically.

I believe that Franklin now likely has the best staff that PSU has ever had, other than the fact that Paterno was the best head coach of all time and from that he made up for some of the weaker positional staff leads that he had. But I'm still in the camp that what allows Franklin to finish top 5 when his recruiting classes average 2nd ten is his and his staff's eye for talent. It seems each of his classes have at least a couple of 3 star "rated" players that from their first workouts and practices at PSU were significantly under rated by the "experts". And there are also regularly mid or low 4 star players such as Carter that in reality were 5 star talents. Other examples were Franklin's pursuit of Fields and Allar way before they blew up and got offers from teams like the bugeyes.

 

[ryoder1]

I believe that Franklin now likely has the best staff that PSU has ever had, other than the fact that Paterno was the best head coach of all time and from that he made up for some of the weaker positional staff leads that he had. But I'm still in the camp that what allows Franklin to finish top 5 when his recruiting classes average 2nd ten is his and his staff's eye for talent. It seems each of his classes have at least a couple of 3 star "rated" players that from their first workouts and practices at PSU were significantly under rated by the "experts". And there are also regularly mid or low 4 star players such as Carter that in reality were 5 star talents. Other examples were Franklin's pursuit of Fields and Allar way before they blew up and got offers from teams like the bugeyes.

Warren is another example of a game changer we had that no one else really thought was going to be a special talent. He obviously played like a 5 star last season.

I agree that Franklin has a good eye for talent and probably more the assistants versus him can also develop that talent.

We now need him to win a tough, tight big game. He got it done vs USC last year which was the difference in us making the playoff. Say what you want about USC last year but they had talent on our level so that was a big win for James. Unfortunately that has been very rare for Franklin, all the OSU close losses, Michigan losses, Oregon, ND last year, USC in the Rose Bowl. The agony has to end! Take care of Oregon in the WO in HV. Absolutely need to take care of business at Kinnick. Maybe just maybe it is finally our year for a W in Columbus. Then......a deep run in the playoffs.

 

[LudicrousSpeedGO!]

Warren is another example of a game changer we had that no one else really thought was going to be a special talent. He obviously played like a 5 star last season.

I agree that Franklin has a good eye for talent and probably more the assistants versus him can also develop that talent.

We now need him to win a tough, tight big game. He got it done vs USC last year which was the difference in us making the playoff. Say what you want about USC last year but they had talent on our level so that was a big win for James. Unfortunately that has been very rare for Franklin, all the OSU close losses, Michigan losses, Oregon, ND last year, USC in the Rose Bowl. The agony has to end! Take care of Oregon in the WO in HV. Absolutely need to take care of business at Kinnick. Maybe just maybe it is finally our year for a W in Columbus. Then......a deep run in the playoffs.

What is interesting to me about Warren is that we knew he was good before the season but had no idea just how good. So was it that he needed the opportunity to do more? Did he suddenly make a big jump in development? Were all the stops pulled out simply because our WRs were so weak that we needed to compensate?

Either way, Warren isn't the only player who goes from a co-starter type of role to superstar. This happens in college football as the light goes on for young men. The question is, who do we see making that big jump this year to potential star or at least dominant starter? Below are some breakout candidates IMO.

1) Washington
2) Rojas
3) Wheatley
4) Ford
5) Dennis-Sutton (he is tough to list because he was already a very good starter, so the jump here would be to elite)
6) Fisher
7) Cousins
8) Dinkins or Reynolds
9) Any WR, anyone, please!