‘Creative, not creepy’ recruiting mindset heralded by James Franklin as Penn State pulls in top-25 Class of 2016

The candidness caught everyone a little off-guard.

But maybe head coach James Franklin was a little tired, a little devil-may-care after weeks spent hot on the recruiting trail — weeks lived in dramatic fashion between flipped commits, subtle jabs between various Big Ten programs and staff changes.

“We want to be creative, not creepy,” he deadpanned, then cracked into a smile along with his audience of media members, fresh off a morning spent inking into place a 20-member Class of 2016 that ranks in the top-25 by all major recruiting outlets.

It was a final dig before the (externally) quieter part of the year begins for Penn State — one might imagine it was directed at the antics of Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, who signed the No. 5 recruiting class in the nation and the second-best in the Big Ten. Harbaugh notoriously thought outside the box during the contact period, having sleepovers at the houses of recruits (like former Penn State commit Quinn Nordin) and attending high school classes with some. Then, Harbaugh held a National Signing Day event in a concert hall with guests like New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, Yankees legend Derek Jeter and former pro wrester Ric Flair.

Flair, indeed.

“We want to be creative, not creepy,” repeated Franklin. “We like to have fun, we like to think outside the box. We like to have fun with recruits and their families. But to me, it’s more about relationships. It’s about the coaches. It’s about the athletic directors. It’s about the guidance counselors. It’s about the parents. It’s about building those relationships.

“And those other things are fun, and I appreciate other people being creative and thinking outside the box and we’re going to try to do the same things. But, like anything in life, there’s a fine line to it.”

Penn State did get creative this offseason, at one point sending a large and well-furnished bus with several coaches aboard to pick up recruits from the Pittsburgh area for an official visit.

And then, there was a bit of a war on social media between Penn State fans and Michigan fans when top prospect Lavert Hill took his official visit to the university. Hill was walked out onto the ice at a Penn State hockey game, his name and face were shown on the arena’s big screen and he was introduced to a loud ovation from the crowd.

Many — most — thought it was an NCAA violation; that a university could not directly reference a recruit or introduce them at a sporting event, or intentionally publicize their attendance.

“That caused a lot of buzz,” said assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Terry Smith. “That was a little bit creative because it was ahead of the game. No one had done it.”

What the program did was find a loophole, and then run it by compliance. Smith won’t say who thought of the loophole, but indications point to receivers coach Josh Gattis (as did Smith, halfway, before pulling his hand back).

Smith looked down at the table and a small grin crept over his face as he remembered the borderline-hysterics each fan base went into via social media.

“It’s illegal, they can’t do that!” Smith mimicked the outcry.

“Through the rules, if a kid applies to us and gets accepted into school, and pays his initiation fee or whatever the application fee is, he goes into what is called ‘paid accept,’” said Smith. “In that phase, we are then allowed to promote the kid and talk about the kid.”

There was also some thought that there might be a penalty, since the loophole seemed to imply that if a prospect participated in the above process and didn’t sign with that school, a secondary violation would be reported against the responsible program. Smith said in Hill’s case, despite Hill eventually signing with Michigan, there would be no penalty.

“We’ve had enough issues the last few years, we don’t want any more,” Smith remarked drily.

The Class

Penn State addressed some of its most important needs with the 2016 class — the offensive line (which continues to be a work in progress), the defensive line (which bid farewell to three of the team’s best players, NFL prospects Austin Johnson, Anthony Zettel and Carl Nassib), and the specialists (for which Penn State hadn’t signed anyone on scholarship since the fallout from the sanctions hit).

The team also signed a couple of flashy players who will make an instant impact — the most notable of whom is the nation’s No. 1 running back and Pittsburgh product, Miles Sanders.

Offensive line

Two players who will likely immediately be a contributing presence on Penn State’s offensive line (and will more than likely see their share of minutes in the fall) are early enrollee Connor McGovern (Larksville, Lake-Lehman High School) and signee Michal Menet (Reading, Exeter Township Senior High School).

McGovern is tall for a center, at 6-foot-4, but plenty big enough, at 312 pounds. Franklin said McGovern tested extremely well in Penn State’s camp, too — even better than anticipated.

“He’s still baby-faced, (but) he can run. He can jump,” Franklin said. “…The fact that he graduated and came to campus is going to give him a chance. It’s hard to play on the O-line as a freshman, but the fact that he’s here six months early and he’s already a big, physical, strong guy and very, very intelligent, it gives him a shot.”

Franklin also said he could see the 6-foot-4, 285-pound Menet playing any of the five spots along the line.

“Menet’s a guy that I think has the athletic ability to play tackle, has the intelligence to play center, has the power to play guard,” he said.

Defensive tackle

Once Penn State realized its defensive line was in serious danger of going from the best, most experienced unit on the team to one missing its three key players and a fourth sub in defensive end Tarow Barney, the staff decided (against norm) to pick up two junior college transfers as well as a few young signees.

The idea is that the JuCo transfers will be game-ready for two of the three vacancies, thus allowing the younger talent to put on weight and develop.

Nassau’s Tyrell Chavis, the No. 3 JuCo product nationally at his position according to 247Sports, is one of those transfers.

“I would say we had identified Tyrell very early on in the process,” said Franklin. “Again, just like I said with the O-line, it is difficult to play on the D-line as a freshman, although we’re going to probably have to have a few guys do that. So being able to get a guy who is older, more mature, he’s about 6-4, he’s about 300 pounds, right in that ballpark right now … being able to get an older guy like that on board with us was significant, no doubt about it.”

Lackawanna Community College product Brenon Thrift was also added to the class, a bit of a Wednesday morning surprise.

The freshmen include very athletic promising prospects in Shaka Toney and Shane Simmons, the latter was the second verbal of the class and incredibly important in the intra-peer recruiting process. Both will get brought into camp as defensive ends, and once they are comfortable there the options of shifting them inside or into the second tier will be explored, according to Smith.

Specialists

Penn State finally has both a kicker and a punter on scholarship, which was absolutely crucial to the success of the class.

Kicker Alex Barbir signed with Penn State after flipping from Rutgers last week, and punter Blake Gillikin signed as well.

“As you guys know, as well as we do, you could probably make an argument over the last two years that maybe four games could come out differently if we could have been a little more consistent on special teams in terms of swinging field position and things like that,” said Franklin. “So having two guys come in that we’ve seen kick in person have been very, very successful at camps that they’ve gone to have been very successful at games.”

Barbir is already a favorite with fans on social media, while Franklin said he thinks Gillikin is one of the best punters in the nation. However, the head coach also added the two will have to compete with Daniel Pasquariello, Joey Julius and Tyler Davis — the specialists currently on the roster.

This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 8:33 PM with the headline "‘Creative, not creepy’ recruiting mindset heralded by James Franklin as Penn State pulls in top-25 Class of 2016."