Eleven Warriors

Enjoy the Motor City Bowl Adam.

Hard to recruit against strong emotional ties to a university. Wish him well except for one game each year. ;)

Read that Breneman told Alex Anzalone that once he commits he is really going to recruit him hard. We know that's to PSU now.

Music to the ears of Josh McNeil

It's starting to look like a one-year hiccup for PSU. 

He better not shower in the football complex...

I highly doubt the roar will soon drown out the sounds of the children.

Oh, be quiet.

A lot of mistakes went down out Penn State, and their program is paying for it and cleaning it up. The Penn State board of trustees handled the scandal in the best way they could. They cleaned house and they have every right to start moving forward again. "The children" (who I doubt who truly care about, as evidenced in your exploitation of them so you could make a clever slight at Penn State over the internet) have and should have their attention directed towards Sandusky and those no longer a part of Penn State.

I told all of you Bill O'brien was a good hire. I also told you all that American's have short memories and that the scandal would not affect Penn State long term. If O'brien can coach half as well as he can recruit, Penn State will be a force, and there should be some epic Meyer vs. Obrien games in the future to decide the Leaders division. If Wisconsin can keep building on their success these past few years, if PSU and OSU return to being perrennial top 10 programs, and if Illinois becomes more competitive under Beckman, the Leaders division may very well be akin to the SEC West in a few years. May very well have a year where we see four teams out of this division ranked with three in the Top 10-15.

@Doug

most coaches have their best recruiting class in their 1st year.

I disagree. Off the top of my head, I can think of several coaches that had subpar recruiting classes in their first year when compared to their predecessor: Tressel (albeit, that first class he brought in ended up being pretty damn good, but wasn't necessarily highly touted), Les Miles (LSU went from the #2 recruiting class under Saban in 2004 to 19th in 2005 under Les), Chip Kelly (9th and 23rd the two years before he came, unranked recruiting class in his first year), Charlie Weis (an unspectatcular 27th ranked recruiting class in his first year, far below Notre Dame standards), Gene Chizik (16th ranked class his first year... not bad, but certainly not his best "in his first year"). Hell, even Saban's first class in 2007 was ranked four spots lower (18th to 22nd) in his first year than the previous year's recruiting class. And not that any of these classes were actually "subpar" by talent standards, but they certainly weren't "their best recruiting class". All of these coaches would go on to have MUCH better recruiting classes in the future.

Give credit where credit is due. So far, Bill O'Brien is doing pretty well on the recruiting trail, all things considered.

Sorry Doug... one more thought...

If you were to have said "coaches generally have their best recruiting classes in their second year", then I might be inclined to agree with that, as that's the year that coaches have their first full year to recruit and what not, and anecdotal evidence suggests coaches do pretty damn well in their second year recruiting. And since this would technically be BOB's second recruiting class (the 2012 recruiting class is by all accounts his first), then, yes, there's nothing to get too excited about over BOB's recruiting for 2013 (although I think it's much tougher to sell Penn State these days, so in that regard he has certainly impressed me).

@Humble:  I actually saw someone post it on Bucknuts.  I look at it this way, in the first year a coach puts in his system recruits are drawn to "writing the ship" and their is a new excitement to a program, so a program will generate additional interest in athletes that may have not considered the program before the coaching change. But if the coach and program is unsuccessful in winning quickly, the following years it is a little harder for that coach to "sell" his program.  I feel that if a program does not turn it around quickly the "quality" of recruit may not be attracted to that program. Thanks for the stats they were interesting!