2025 College Football Thread: Akron recruiter scoffs when player mentions maybe wanting to go to Penn State (22 Viewers)

[Fantasy_Freak]

Penn State is currently between Montana State and Akron in the recruiting rankings. Years long disaster incoming.

Good lord.....

I was just reading this online, they are sandwiched between UAB and New Mexico State at 135 overall, with what looks like 2 commits.

 

[Moe.]

Chris Klieman is going to retire, supposedly Collin Klein will take the job at KState. Doesn’t appear to be done done yet but there is a press conference at 4. Klein will surely stay with aTm until they are done.

Klieman to retire; Klein to be hired as KSU FB head coach

Chris Klieman is set to retire as the Kansas State football coach as early as today, and his replacement is already lined up: Collin Klein.

themercury.com

 

[Chadstroma]

Brian Hartline to USF. Huge loss for Ohio St (already impacting their recruiting). Big hire for USF.

Wow. I really thought he'd be Penn State's backup plan when Sitake fell through. I really don't know where PSU goes from here as Hartline could be a great hire for Penn State, let alone USF. Feels like a homerun hire for USF.

Dabol is the only one I think they can do. No idea if he is interested or not but they are running out of options that their stakeholders will be ok with.

 

[Sparky Polastri]

I still think the committee should only release one set of rankings after the conference championships.

Not good for marketing. The rankings give people something to talk about and talking about it creates ratings and ratings is money.

Do you care more about meaningless marketing or getting the playoff order correct. There are a whole lot of you in here pissing and moaning about individual games, what cost who and how. MOST of that is driven by the stupid polls that start at the beginning of the season. Confirmation bias and ability to admit wrong are real things. Both are really hard for some people to accept and a result of that is some pretty bad polls that only exist because people want to be right or they can't admit they were wrong.

My friend if you know the “correct” order then by all means share it with the class.

I have said that the weekly shows are mostly that - show. I do think the teams appreciate knowing where they stand though. I like to think of the weekly rankings as a rough draft. They know they’ve got a final draft due next week, but in the meantime they’ve gotta get something down on paper and they can fully flesh out the arguments when all the games are done. That’s why I’d have no issue with teams who don’t play this week moving in the final ranking. You’re talking about confirmation bias and inability to admit mistakes, but then saying they aren’t allowed to make changes week over week. They can’t change their minds?

After hearing Yurachek talk these past few weeks - I think we might be giving the ADs too much credit in terms of the long-term scheming. It’s very possible they are doing their best with an impossible task. Maybe we picked the wrong group of people for this exercise. Aren’t Athletic Directors really busy with lots of responsibility behind just the football program?

We live in an era where th8ngs now change so much from one year to the next, rankings prior to Nov really are shots in the dark. In precious years I could sorta see the rankings. The haves were able to hoard their talent and it was pretty safe to suggest they were probably going to be pretty good bet the following year. That is no longer. Pollsters are even pointing it out. This isn't really controversial. The only purpose those ranks provide now is that weird group think things that always happens.

To the "changing their minds" thing, objectively, if a group says "this is team 10 in the country based on their accomplishments and failures (their resume) " and that team does ZERO to add or subtract, I see no objective reason to move them anywhere. It makes no sense.

 

[Chadstroma]

Penn State is currently between Montana State and Akron in the recruiting rankings. Years long disaster incoming.

Good lord.....

When big money donors start making calls.... things can go off the rails real fast.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

Penn State is currently between Montana State and Akron in the recruiting rankings. Years long disaster incoming.

Won't they eventually just hire a coach and he brings in 40 kids from the portal so it doesn't really matter?

 

[General Malaise]

Kentucky named Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein as its next head football coach, the school announced Monday. Stein will replace Mark Stoops, who was officially fired Monday morning, two days after a 41-0 loss to Louisville. Stoops had been the Ky head coach for 13 years. He led them to a couple of 10 win seasons and eight straight bowl berths, but had two straight losing seasons when he was fired.

Face it, Ky will always be a basketball school, and Stoops probably did as well as he could there and better than most. What are your thoughts on this new hiring? Same as always for Ky football? It’s hard to compete consistently in the SEC when you’re Kentucky football.

Vanderbilt figured it out this year....Stein is very impressive. He'll be a refreshing voice for KY.

 

[mr. furley]

this is ridiculous. time to expand the playoffs to 22 teams.

Agreed! I look forward to arguing about how Georgia Tech shouldn't be in with Iowa and Tennesee out.

6 win teams deserve a sniff if they finished above .500

let's not just leave these kids out of the mix

 

[Moe.]

I still think the committee should only release one set of rankings after the conference championships.

Not good for marketing. The rankings give people something to talk about and talking about it creates ratings and ratings is money.

Do you care more about meaningless marketing or getting the playoff order correct. There are a whole lot of you in here pissing and moaning about individual games, what cost who and how. MOST of that is driven by the stupid polls that start at the beginning of the season. Confirmation bias and ability to admit wrong are real things. Both are really hard for some people to accept and a result of that is some pretty bad polls that only exist because people want to be right or they can't admit they were wrong.

My friend if you know the “correct” order then by all means share it with the class.

I have said that the weekly shows are mostly that - show. I do think the teams appreciate knowing where they stand though. I like to think of the weekly rankings as a rough draft. They know they’ve got a final draft due next week, but in the meantime they’ve gotta get something down on paper and they can fully flesh out the arguments when all the games are done. That’s why I’d have no issue with teams who don’t play this week moving in the final ranking. You’re talking about confirmation bias and inability to admit mistakes, but then saying they aren’t allowed to make changes week over week. They can’t change their minds?

After hearing Yurachek talk these past few weeks - I think we might be giving the ADs too much credit in terms of the long-term scheming. It’s very possible they are doing their best with an impossible task. Maybe we picked the wrong group of people for this exercise. Aren’t Athletic Directors really busy with lots of responsibility behind just the football program?

We live in an era where th8ngs now change so much from one year to the next, rankings prior to Nov really are shots in the dark. In precious years I could sorta see the rankings. The haves were able to hoard their talent and it was pretty safe to suggest they were probably going to be pretty good bet the following year. That is no longer. Pollsters are even pointing it out. This isn't really controversial. The only purpose those ranks provide now is that weird group think things that always happens.

To the "changing their minds" thing, objectively, if a group says "this is team 10 in the country based on their accomplishments and failures (their resume) " and that team does ZERO to add or subtract, I see no objective reason to move them anywhere. It makes no sense.

I think the appeal of rankings in CFB in general is because we don’t have any sort of objective metric beyond your own conference standings. There are power rankings on every website that covers the NFL, but it’s just a fun little exercise that nobody takes too seriously because it’s kind of impossible and they have actual criteria in place to know where they stand. We obviously don’t have that in CFB, so we have these polls.

I don’t pay attention to the polls anymore and couldn’t tell you who was ranked where when. I would hope it’s the same for the people on the committee but I’m sure you’re right and that there is some carryover. Ultimately we’re dealing with a “league” unlike anything else in the world and it was never created to be a thing where a sole champion was crowned. I think this is the best version that we’ve ever had (in terms of crowning a singular champ) and expect it to be refined even further from here

 

[Capella]

Penn State is currently between Montana State and Akron in the recruiting rankings. Years long disaster incoming.

Won't they eventually just hire a coach and he brings in 40 kids from the portal so it doesn't really matter?

I don’t think that really works that well.

 

[Phil Elliott]

Brian Hartline to USF. Huge loss for Ohio St (already impacting their recruiting). Big hire for USF.

Wow. I really thought he'd be Penn State's backup plan when Sitake fell through. I really don't know where PSU goes from here as Hartline could be a great hire for Penn State, let alone USF. Feels like a homerun hire for USF.

Napier wants to still coach and is available.

 

[Moe.]

Did PSU try for Hartline? I’m surprised to see him take the USF job. Not that it’s a bad job, but if he wanted to be a head coach I figured he’d get a P5 offer

 

[Chadstroma]

Did PSU try for Hartline? I’m surprised to see him take the USF job. Not that it’s a bad job, but if he wanted to be a head coach I figured he’d get a P5 offer

I guess they were busy targeting ****ake?

 

[JohnnyU]

Kentucky named Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein as its next head football coach, the school announced Monday. Stein will replace Mark Stoops, who was officially fired Monday morning, two days after a 41-0 loss to Louisville. Stoops had been the Ky head coach for 13 years. He led them to a couple of 10 win seasons and eight straight bowl berths, but had two straight losing seasons when he was fired.

Face it, Ky will always be a basketball school, and Stoops probably did as well as he could there and better than most. What are your thoughts on this new hiring? Same as always for Ky football? It’s hard to compete consistently in the SEC when you’re Kentucky football.

Vanderbilt figured it out this year....Stein is very impressive. He'll be a refreshing voice for KY.

Yep, Vandy figured it out this year. So did Kentucky just a few years ago with two 10 win seasons. The problem with programs like Vandy and Kentucky, it’s maintaining success that is the issue.

 

[Beef Ravioli Part 2]

Did PSU try for Hartline? I’m surprised to see him take the USF job. Not that it’s a bad job, but if he wanted to be a head coach I figured he’d get a P5 offer

The word out of Ohio is that bigger programs (like PSU) were not ready to give him the reigns because it was his first year as a coordinator. He had been just the WR coach prior to this season.

It really is a great spot for Hartline. He recruits Florida well historically. Big school but not the pressure of a place like Penn State. He gets experience and hopefully success and hopefully comes back to Ohio State if/when Day tries the NFL in a few years and has true head coaching experience.

 

[General Malaise]

The last OC to leave Oregon (Kenny Dillingham) had Arizona State in the playoffs in his second season (and damn near beat Texas) so if you're a Kentucky football fan, you have to like the track record of the last young OC plucked from Oregon's staff.

My co-worker's son committed to play QB for Wazzou but he and his dad attended a presentation by Will Stein given to a bunch of QB recruits and they were both blown away by his acumen, polish, energy. I think KY got a great one, though the waters will be much harder to navigate than the ones Dillingham is swimming in.

 

[Chadstroma]

Only four power 4 schools did not have a decommit today.

Yes, ND was one of them.

 

[Sparky Polastri]

I still think the committee should only release one set of rankings after the conference championships.

Not good for marketing. The rankings give people something to talk about and talking about it creates ratings and ratings is money.

Do you care more about meaningless marketing or getting the playoff order correct. There are a whole lot of you in here pissing and moaning about individual games, what cost who and how. MOST of that is driven by the stupid polls that start at the beginning of the season. Confirmation bias and ability to admit wrong are real things. Both are really hard for some people to accept and a result of that is some pretty bad polls that only exist because people want to be right or they can't admit they were wrong.

My friend if you know the “correct” order then by all means share it with the class.

I have said that the weekly shows are mostly that - show. I do think the teams appreciate knowing where they stand though. I like to think of the weekly rankings as a rough draft. They know they’ve got a final draft due next week, but in the meantime they’ve gotta get something down on paper and they can fully flesh out the arguments when all the games are done. That’s why I’d have no issue with teams who don’t play this week moving in the final ranking. You’re talking about confirmation bias and inability to admit mistakes, but then saying they aren’t allowed to make changes week over week. They can’t change their minds?

After hearing Yurachek talk these past few weeks - I think we might be giving the ADs too much credit in terms of the long-term scheming. It’s very possible they are doing their best with an impossible task. Maybe we picked the wrong group of people for this exercise. Aren’t Athletic Directors really busy with lots of responsibility behind just the football program?

We live in an era where th8ngs now change so much from one year to the next, rankings prior to Nov really are shots in the dark. In precious years I could sorta see the rankings. The haves were able to hoard their talent and it was pretty safe to suggest they were probably going to be pretty good bet the following year. That is no longer. Pollsters are even pointing it out. This isn't really controversial. The only purpose those ranks provide now is that weird group think things that always happens.

To the "changing their minds" thing, objectively, if a group says "this is team 10 in the country based on their accomplishments and failures (their resume) " and that team does ZERO to add or subtract, I see no objective reason to move them anywhere. It makes no sense.

I think the appeal of rankings in CFB in general is because we don’t have any sort of objective metric beyond your own conference standings. There are power rankings on every website that covers the NFL, but it’s just a fun little exercise that nobody takes too seriously because it’s kind of impossible and they have actual criteria in place to know where they stand. We obviously don’t have that in CFB, so we have these polls.

I don’t pay attention to the polls anymore and couldn’t tell you who was ranked where when. I would hope it’s the same for the people on the committee but I’m sure you’re right and that there is some carryover. Ultimately we’re dealing with a “league” unlike anything else in the world and it was never created to be a thing where a sole champion was crowned. I think this is the best version that we’ve ever had (in terms of crowning a singular champ) and expect it to be refined even further from here

Personally, I think the biggest problem in this whole thing is a lack of objective measures/standards the committee uses year end and year out. All that should be documented and not change a whole lot from one year to the next. Right now it feels like "well, let's see what THIS version of the committee decides is the way to evaluate all the noise" and we just sit and watch it all burn

 

[Jayded]

I'll throw PSU a bone. It looks like they are onto the secondary list of coaches. I feel like there'd have been an obvious one if he'd have stuck in place this year instead of already moved, but might still be a possibility : Al Golden.

He's a former head coach who came back to college and had tremendous success as a coordinator the past few years. He's an alumni as well. He wasn't stellar his first two shots he got, but he's at least someone who could come in and likely stabilize things, knows the university from his own personal time there, and repaired his name in the college game with his performance the past few years.

 

[Chadstroma]

Brohm turned PSU down.

Donors are apparently pushing for Terry Smith.

 

[Chadstroma]

Neal Brown to North Texas.

 

[Capella]

I'll throw PSU a bone. It looks like they are onto the secondary list of coaches. I feel like there'd have been an obvious one if he'd have stuck in place this year instead of already moved, but might still be a possibility : Al Golden.

He's a former head coach who came back to college and had tremendous success as a coordinator the past few years. He's an alumni as well. He wasn't stellar his first two shots he got, but he's at least someone who could come in and likely stabilize things, knows the university from his own personal time there, and repaired his name in the college game with his performance the past few years.

AL GOLDEN?????

 

[bigbottom]

Only four power 4 schools did not have a decommit today.

Yes, ND was one of them.

Was USC one of the four?

 

[Chadstroma]

Only four power 4 schools did not have a decommit today.

Yes, ND was one of them.

Was USC one of the four?

Dunno. But I do believe you guys secured the top ranked class.

 

[Jayded]

I'll throw PSU a bone. It looks like they are onto the secondary list of coaches. I feel like there'd have been an obvious one if he'd have stuck in place this year instead of already moved, but might still be a possibility : Al Golden.

He's a former head coach who came back to college and had tremendous success as a coordinator the past few years. He's an alumni as well. He wasn't stellar his first two shots he got, but he's at least someone who could come in and likely stabilize things, knows the university from his own personal time there, and repaired his name in the college game with his performance the past few years.

AL GOLDEN?????

He's an alumni coming off a Broyles Award win. He might have won it again this year if he'd have stayed

I mean, who else, at this point, are they realistically going to pull?

 

[bigbottom]

Only four power 4 schools did not have a decommit today.

Yes, ND was one of them.

Was USC one of the four?

Dunno. But I do believe you guys secured the top ranked class.

I just checked, and it looks like 34 of the 35 committed USC recruits have signed today, including a flip this morning of 4-star WR Kayden Dixon-Wyatt from Ohio State (thank you Brian Hartline). That secures USC the top ranked recruiting class for 2026, snapping the SEC’s 17-year streak of #1 classes. For all the doubters who predicted that USC’s class would fall apart by this time, or that USC’s policy of not allowing its commits to visit any other schools would backfire, it turns out that they knew what they were doing after all.

The only committed USC recruit that has not officially signed is TE Mark Bowman. I wonder if teams like Georgia who have had big time flips now have more money to throw at the best TE prospect in the country. Would really hate to lose him. But even without Bowman, this is a fantastic (and much needed) class for the Trojans.

 

[bigbottom]

Oregon reportedly making a serious run to flip #1 WR OSU commit Chris Henry, Jr. That would be brutal if wide receiver U lost both of its top WR commits possibly because of Hartline’s surprise departure.

 

[Jayded]

Oregon reportedly making a serious run to flip #1 WR OSU commit Chris Henry, Jr. That would be brutal if wide receiver U lost both of its top WR commits possibly because of Hartline’s surprise departure.

Wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up at SC with the other Mater Dei kids. Great class from SC (and fun seeing ND and SC at the top of recruiting rankings again - makes the rivalry fun when both are good)

 

[Chadstroma]

Only four power 4 schools did not have a decommit today.

Yes, ND was one of them.

Was USC one of the four?

Dunno. But I do believe you guys secured the top ranked class.

I just checked, and it looks like 34 of the 35 committed USC recruits have signed today, including a flip this morning of 4-star WR Kayden Dixon-Wyatt from Ohio State (thank you Brian Hartline). That secures USC the top ranked recruiting class for 2026, snapping the SEC’s 17-year streak of #1 classes. For all the doubters who predicted that USC’s class would fall apart by this time, or that USC’s policy of not allowing its commits to visit any other schools would backfire, it turns out that they knew what they were doing after all.

The only committed USC recruit that has not officially signed is TE Mark Bowman. I wonder if teams like Georgia who have had big time flips now have more money to throw at the best TE prospect in the country. Would really hate to lose him. But even without Bowman, this is a fantastic (and much needed) class for the Trojans.

From what I have seen Bowman is pretty consistently ranked third among the rankings. Kendre Harrison (Oregon commit) usually has top though 247 has Ian Premer (ND commit) as top.

Also... weren't you one of those doubters about their approach?

 

[Chadstroma]

Oregon reportedly making a serious run to flip #1 WR OSU commit Chris Henry, Jr. That would be brutal if wide receiver U lost both of its top WR commits possibly because of Hartline’s surprise departure.

USC was making a hard push too.

 

[bigbottom]

Oregon reportedly making a serious run to flip #1 WR OSU commit Chris Henry, Jr. That would be brutal if wide receiver U lost both of its top WR commits possibly because of Hartline’s surprise departure.

Wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up at SC with the other Mater Dei kids. Great class from SC (and fun seeing ND and SC at the top of recruiting rankings again - makes the rivalry fun when both are good)

Even with a bunch of Mater Dei kids committing to SC, I don’t think they are seriously in play for Henry (he’d be a huge get, but they also already have 6 WRs in the class after today’s flip). Rumor has it that it’s down to Oregon versus OSU.

 

[bigbottom]

Only four power 4 schools did not have a decommit today.

Yes, ND was one of them.

Was USC one of the four?

Dunno. But I do believe you guys secured the top ranked class.

I just checked, and it looks like 34 of the 35 committed USC recruits have signed today, including a flip this morning of 4-star WR Kayden Dixon-Wyatt from Ohio State (thank you Brian Hartline). That secures USC the top ranked recruiting class for 2026, snapping the SEC’s 17-year streak of #1 classes. For all the doubters who predicted that USC’s class would fall apart by this time, or that USC’s policy of not allowing its commits to visit any other schools would backfire, it turns out that they knew what they were doing after all.

The only committed USC recruit that has not officially signed is TE Mark Bowman. I wonder if teams like Georgia who have had big time flips now have more money to throw at the best TE prospect in the country. Would really hate to lose him. But even without Bowman, this is a fantastic (and much needed) class for the Trojans.

From what I have seen Bowman is pretty consistently ranked third among the rankings. Kendre Harrison (Oregon commit) usually has top though 247 has Ian Premer (ND commit) as top.

Also... weren't you one of those doubters about their approach?

I didn’t know how it would play out, but I wasn’t a doubter. This year just felt different than last year when the class lost a bunch of top commits. Part of that was the impact of Chad Bowden (kudos to ND for developing a great front office) and a lot of it was that many of the commits this year were SoCal locals.

P.S. and you are correct on Mark Bowman. My mistake. I should have said “one of the best”.