What should fans expect from Penn State’s early signing period? We asked BWI’s Ryan Snyder

Early National Signing Day, the first time high school recruits can make their verbal commitments official, will soon be in full swing. So we decided to turn to an expert to make sense of it all.

Recruiting analyst Ryan Snyder, who works for Rivals’ Blue White Illustrated, recently joined us to discuss what fans can expect Wednesday and throughout the recruiting period — as well as the big picture, which recruits could play immediately, and a whole lot more.

Take a look:

Centre Daily Times: James Franklin has been putting together annual top-15 recruiting classes since he got here. Is there anything different about this class, or is this similar to what we’ve seen the past few years?

Ryan Snyder: I don’t there’s too much that’s truly different. To be honest, I see way more similarities in recent classes than I see differences. There are a lot of kids that care about the right things — it’s not just about football, it’s not just about getting the best players in here. But it’s about getting the guys who are versatile and who, off the field, are going to represent Pennn State pretty well.

When the class is all said and done, I think we’re going to see more defensive linemen than usual. That could be a little bit different. But for the most part, it’s similar — a bunch of defensive backs, at least 3-4 offensive linemen. And we’ll probably see two running backs and two quarterbacks, and that’s a little different. But, for the most part, it’s status quo for James Franklin in recent years.

CDT: You mentioned two running backs. Penn State has one verbal right now in five-star RB Devyn Ford; who’s the other RB and where does he stand?

RS: Noah Cain is the guy to watch (Wednesday). He commits at 11 o’clock, and I think Penn State is the favorite — but we’ll see.

CDT: Penn State is up to 17 commits right now, with DE Adisa Isaac being the most recent Monday. How many more we can expect between now and February — and, in your estimation, besides Cain, who could be next?

RS: Let’s put it this way: Some guys are definitely going to leave for the pros, although that doesn’t have much impact on this class. But when you consider what happened to (Jordan) Miner and (Nana) Asiedu and other guys leaving early — like Brelin Faison-Walden is now out. They can take 25 now. That wasn’t the case a couple months ago. We originally thought this would be a smaller class, but now they can definitely take 25. I think the question is, do they take 25? And, right now, I kind of feel like it’s going to be a little bit under that — maybe 23 or 24.

And the only reason I say that is that it’s pretty late in the cycle. And they’re in good shape with some players, but there’s not a dozen guys out there that they can still land and, obviously, they’re not going to bat 1.000. ... But, yeah, Noah Cain is definitely the guy to watch (Wednesday). There are two more to really watch and that’s Zach Harrison, the five-star defensive end out of Columbus and Cornelius Johnson, the three- or four-star depending on the site. Cain’s the one we feel like Penn State is in the best position with, but the thing with Cornelius and Zach is that both have been extremely quiet.

You get a handful of recruits every year that aren’t into recruiting media, which is totally understandable. I get it. But those two fit that category, so we’ll see. I think Zach’s going to go to Ohio State and I think Cornelius is going to go to Michigan, but they’re definitely two guys to keep an eye on.

CDT: You’ve gotten to know these guys over the past year, or in some cases even longer. Who do you think Penn State fans will be most impressed by — whether it’s on the field or off, like Saquon Barkley who gave up his medal in high school?

RS: First off, Adisa Isaac, the guy that committed (Monday), is a very, very impressive player. I’ve seen him now at three camps and every time I see him, I leave more and more impressed. He just has a good fundamental base and really knows how to use leverage and really has a few swim moves and what-not down-pat that you don’t always see at that age. Some guys just use their pure strength and they can get away with that. But Adisa has a solid background, so when you add the fact he’s pretty coachable, there’s reason to be excited.

Devyn Ford, of course, five-star running back — whenever you get that title, that means you’re a special player. And he’s proven that for how many years now? I think his freshman year he had 2,000 yards of offense; I think it was 1,800 rushing. And to do that as a freshman in high school is incredible. And, since then, he’s only continued to put up crazy numbers. This guy’s the real deal. But Devyn off the field is everything you want too. I don’t want to compare anyone to Saquon, but he cares about all the right things. Devyn has a 3.8 GPA, so let’s put it that way.

But we can go on and on. Brandon Smith is very similar. He’s another really special player who cares about all the right things. Keaton Ellis is a State College native, I think a lot of fans already love that about him. And Keaton Ellis has gone from a good player to extremely good and I don’t want to say elite, but he’s really up there over the last year. He’s really taken his game to another level. But we can go on and on. Brenton Strange had an amazing summer and went from an unranked player to one of the top tight ends in the country. John Dunmore we haven’t even talked about, and his route-running is literally the best route-running I’ve ever seen in a camp setting. I could go all day here.

CDT: There are hidden gems in every class. And, although Rivals has only three PSU players rated three stars or less, is there someone you think is being overlooked here?

RS: Jaquan Brisker, the junior college safety. He is legit. Put it this way, his first year he played safety at Lackawanna and had four-plus interceptions and ended up being all-NEC and was a heck of a safety. And then this year he transitioned to a hybrid linebacker and put up 17 tackles for loss and nine sacks, and he’s an extremely versatile player. So we’re talking about someone who’s going to come in here — not until the summertime; he still has to get more classes done — but he’s already proven at the junior-college level that he can play and not only that but play multiple positions. So he is a guy as a three-star that I think is very much underrated and can come in and really contribute.

CDT: If you had to pick three players most likely to play immediately and burn their redshirts next season, who would they be?

RS: I get this question all the time, and I hate it. It’s so hard. I don’t want to pick the juco guys; isn’t that the cheap way out? But I do think Brisker is going to come out and contribute; that’s the guy I have to mention. Everything he’s done on the juco level — it’s been very, very impressive. But let’s see.

I’ll say this, if Miles Sanders is going pro, then Devyn Ford has to get some sort of playing time. There’s just not going to be much behind Ricky Slade, and Ford is a very special player. I don’t see how he stays off the field. Ricky Slade is a very good player, but I don’t think they want to give him 200-plus carries next year. So who else would be that final guy? I would like to say John Dunmore, but we have to see if he signs.

He’s a very special player. I’d put him right up there with Justin Shorter. He didn’t have the ranking that Shorter did, but I saw him at the Rivals Five-Star Challenge, and I watched him destroy — and I mean destroy — some of the best cornerbacks in the nation. His route-running is incredible. You think he’s going left, he’s going right. You think he’s going to stop, he’s messing with you. I think he’s an incredible player and I think if you give him a chance in this offense, and there’s no way he can’t contribute.

CDT: You said if Dunmore signs. He’s a verbal commit; why might he not sign?

RS: Well, this is the thing. So he went to Miami (Fla.) for an official visit last weekend and he’s been flirting with Miami for a couple weeks now. So, over the past month or so, he’s done about three or so visits there. So he’s done like two official visits over the past five, six weeks — and he just took an official visit this past weekend.

I think he’s going to sign with Penn State. If I had to put my money down on a school, I think he will. But there’s talk about a few things happening — there’s talk of him not signing at all, maybe waiting until the Under Armour All-American Game to announce a decision, even though he’s been committed for how long? There’s a lot of weird rumors going around with John Dunmore, so it’s tough to really say. I think he’s going to be a Nittany Lion, but he’s from Miami and has a lot of friends committed to Miami and has a lot friends already on the Miami team. And I think that is attractive to him, but he’s also very, very close to (Penn State running backs coach) JaJuan Seider. So he’s got to figure that situation out.

CDT: Let me ask you a big-picture question. You’ve been doing this for eight years. How has Penn State’s reputation evolved over that time, and where is it now?

RS: Well, it’s definitely improved. There’s no doubt about that. I’ll say this: Whenever you win a Big Ten championship and you go to a Rose Bowl and you back it up with a Fiesta Bowl and your down year is another Jan. 1 bowl — which Penn State fans may be upset with, but there are a lot of other schools that would love that — I think Franklin and his staff have established themselves not just as awesome recruiters but pretty good coaches too. ... I really think kids have seen that and appreciate what they’ve been able to accomplish — especially because a lot of these kids still do remember where Penn State was five, six years ago.

I think Penn State right now is right around 8-9-10 on that list of destination schools. I really do believe that. This class is going to finish right around that point too — 8-9-10, right around there. They still have a little bit of work to do to get to where Ohio State is, but they’re in a really good spot at the moment. No doubt.

CDT: Let’s look ahead to the 2020 class. There’s one commit there so far — what position do you think Penn State is going to target heavily, and what are 2-3 prospects that fans should keep an eye on this offseason?

RS: Well, it depends on how this class finishes, to be honest. I always just kind of say, talk to me Feb. 5 because there’s so much that has to shake out here. At the same time, I think we know wide receiver is going to be a pretty important spot. It looks like they’re only going to have 1-2 in this (2019) class and I think they wanted to have closer to 2-3. So with guys like Julian Fleming and Rakim Jarrett in the region that shouldn’t be too hard. I expect that to be a spot where they take a few guys.

But they’re always going to add a bunch of O-linemen, they’re always going to want a handful of D-linemen and a handful of D-backs. That’s what you get every year. What I’m curious to see in 2020 is do they take a quarterback? They’ve added two quarterbacks now in this class. The way they’re offering guys now in 2020, there aren’t many guys who you’re like, “Oh, he could wind up at Penn State.” It doesn’t really feel that way. ... And 2021 has some really really good quarterbacks throughout the region with Caleb Williams and Kyle McCord.

This story was originally published December 19, 2018 at 7:28 AM.