ADVERTISEMENT

Erie recruiting

hotmetal

Well-Known Member
Jun 7, 2004
857
365
1
it looks as though Franklin focused to some degree on the Erie area. I don't think Paterno had a big presence there.
 
it looks as though Franklin focused to some degree on the Erie area. I don't think Paterno had a big presence there.

I think people read way too much into where prospects are from. PSU, under both CJF and JoePa, recruited where they found talent. If they found a few guys they liked in the Erie area, they'd recruit them. If they didn't find much talent in the Erie area in a particular year, they wouldn't make any offers to prospects in that region for that year, but they would have recruited the area (evaluated it, and maintained contacts).

There's also the variable that even if you recruit an area, and make offers to one or more prospects in the area (and work hard to land them), there's no guarantee that a college will land any specific prospect. There are so many variables that go into each, individual decision that prospects make regarding college choices.

CJF got Scruggs and Luketa from the Erie area this recruiting cycle. Early indications (which are never 100% accurate) are that there isn't a lot of talent in that area in next year's recruiting class. So if PSU doesn't land a prospect from that area next year, will you conclude that CJF didn't have a big presence in the Erie region?
 
He's targeting the best players all over the Mid-Atlantic and cherry picking from Florida and Texas.

It so happened that Luketa and Scruggs were the best players on the board at their respective positions and they happened to be closer to PSU than some other targets.

That's all.
 
I agree that it doesn't seem like Erie is cranking out two or three four star recruits each season, but it did seem like Iowa and Michigan State, in particular, did pretty well recruiting kids from Erie that we didn't seem all that interested in during the later Paterno years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Fox Chapel Lion II
I think people read way too much into where prospects are from. PSU, under both CJF and JoePa, recruited where they found talent. If they found a few guys they liked in the Erie area, they'd recruit them. If they didn't find much talent in the Erie area in a particular year, they wouldn't make any offers to prospects in that region for that year, but they would have recruited the area (evaluated it, and maintained contacts).

There's also the variable that even if you recruit an area, and make offers to one or more prospects in the area (and work hard to land them), there's no guarantee that a college will land any specific prospect. There are so many variables that go into each, individual decision that prospects make regarding college choices.

CJF got Scruggs from the Erie area this recruiting cycle. Early indications (which are never 100% accurate) are that there isn't a lot of talent in that area in next year's recruiting class. So if PSU doesn't land a prospect from that area next year, will you conclude that CJF didn't have a big presence in the Erie region?

Tom is correct. I spend a lot of time working in the District 10 area and attempt to attend several games up there each year. High school football has been very disappointing in that area for the past several years. Scruggs, Luketa and the LB headed to Notre Dame were the only players worthy of a PSU look this season.
Erie Prep forms its annual all-star team and will usually be capable of a deep run in the Class AAAA playoffs. They will take a graduation hit, but will have no shame when it comes to raiding the area's public school programs for talent. Prep brought Scruggs in from Ohio and has already grabbed a junior QB from one of the smaller suburban public schools to replace the head coach's son for next season. They are at least 6 TDs better than any other D-10 program they line up against.
Mercyhurst Prep seems to be trying to pick up its recruiting, but screwed it up royally last summer and had two solid recruits for local public schools declared ineligible. Luketa played for MP, but I believe he attends a small charter school.
McDowell and the newly consolidated Erie High are both very large schools, but their teams were nothing to get excited about. Those two played for the 6A championship this year and had a very small crowd. Ticket sales for all the D-10 playoff games were way, way down this season. There weren't many games to get excited about.
The best football to watch in D-10 is the small schools (AA and AAA). The games are competitive, but there are not a lot of D-1 players at that level.
 
I think people read way too much into where prospects are from. PSU, under both CJF and JoePa, recruited where they found talent. If they found a few guys they liked in the Erie area, they'd recruit them. If they didn't find much talent in the Erie area in a particular year, they wouldn't make any offers to prospects in that region for that year, but they would have recruited the area (evaluated it, and maintained contacts).

There's also the variable that even if you recruit an area, and make offers to one or more prospects in the area (and work hard to land them), there's no guarantee that a college will land any specific prospect. There are so many variables that go into each, individual decision that prospects make regarding college choices.

CJF got Scruggs and Luketa from the Erie area this recruiting cycle. Early indications (which are never 100% accurate) are that there isn't a lot of talent in that area in next year's recruiting class. So if PSU doesn't land a prospect from that area next year, will you conclude that CJF didn't have a big presence in the Erie region?

I played D10 football (albeit it was back in the day when iron and steel was king) but there simply wasn't that much Div 1A talent in northwestern PA.
 
The Maplewood Tigers aren't still churning out athletic talent??
 
I agree that it doesn't seem like Erie is cranking out two or three four star recruits each season, but it did seem like Iowa and Michigan State, in particular, did pretty well recruiting kids from Erie that we didn't seem all that interested in during the later Paterno years.


It works both ways: sometimes PSU isn’t interested in the players.....and sometimes the players aren't Interested in PSU.

And that’s EVERYWHERE / EVERYYEAR. It’s certainly not unique to the Erie area.
 
ND got a lot of players from that area recently

Really? Let's look at the data. I looked at every ND class from 2010 through the current year's class (2018)

2018 Class:
Matthew Bauer, LB, Erie, PA

2011 Class:
Ben Koyack, TE, Oil City, PA (and that's being generous, as Oil City is not a suburb or a semi-short drive from Erie)

That's hardly getting a lot of players from an area, IMHO.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheGLOV
Really? Let's look at the data. I looked at every ND class from 2010 through the current year's class (2018)

2018 Class:
Matthew Bauer, LB, Erie, PA

2011 Class:
Ben Koyack, TE, Oil City, PA (and that's being generous, as Oil City is not a suburb or a semi-short drive from Erie)

That's hardly getting a lot of players from an area, IMHO.
 
D
Really? Let's look at the data. I looked at every ND class from 2010 through the current year's class (2018)

2018 Class:
Matthew Bauer, LB, Erie, PA

2011 Class:
Ben Koyack, TE, Oil City, PA (and that's being generous, as Oil City is not a suburb or a semi-short drive from Erie)

That's hardly getting a lot of players from an area, IMHO.
 
I'd be quite happy to see Luketa and Scruggs turn out to be very good players (and both seem to have that potential).

And let's not forget Meadville's Journey Brown, who is a very intriguing prospect from the Class of 2017.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheGLOV
Don't forget Journey Brown from Meadville, 40 miles from Erie-- cant wait to see him next season
Doesn't seem that many posters are giving Journey much of a chance. When he signed on late many posted on the poor competition he was going against and some evan posted on him being slow. The 100 state champ at least stopped that nonsense but many continue the poor competion BS. Those same posters are OK with Luketa's Mercyhurst schedule but say Meadville's is garbage. They need to do some homework.
Journey played against good enough teams and ran away and around all of them. I am with you in can't wait to see what he can do. And if he's as good as I think he is, coupled with Sanders and Slade, well HOLY SHIT what a stable of backs!!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Lefty Hill
I'd be quite happy to see Luketa and Scruggs turn out to be very good players (and both seem to have that potential).

And let's not forget Meadville's Journey Brown, who is a very intriguing prospect from the Class of 2017.
Here’s the most intriguing prospect from Meadville:

f27b366b2eff32f96a3a51331edb39d3.jpg
 
Doesn't seem that many posters are giving Journey much of a chance. When he signed on late many posted on the poor competition he was going against and some evan posted on him being slow. The 100 state champ at least stopped that nonsense but many continue the poor competion BS. Those same posters are OK with Luketa's Mercyhurst schedule but say Meadville's is garbage. They need to do some homework.
Journey played against good enough teams and ran away and around all of them. I am with you in can't wait to see what he can do. And if he's as good as I think he is, coupled with Sanders and Slade, well HOLY SHIT what a stable of backs!!!

The competition Luketa played against was not very good. But he wasn't posting insane rushing numbers.
I saw Journey Brown play in high school. I'm not saying he won't be successful at PSU. But I will stand by prior posts where I said the competition he ran against was awful. Many of those teams would have struggled playing jayvee teams from average WPIAL programs. I was just attempting to put those rushing totals in context. I was in no way being critical of Journey Brown.
 
Wherever she's from, there's a 60 year old guy walking around that town that's a legend. Probably an old broken down Quarterback. And his claim to fame isn't the 3 touchdowns he threw against Oil City.
 
Wherever she's from, there's a 60 year old guy walking around that town that's a legend. Probably an old broken down Quarterback. And his claim to fame isn't the 3 touchdowns he threw against Oil City.
My cousin was her roommate for the first semester freshman year...from what she tells me there's probably more than one guy with that claim to fame.
 
I agree that it doesn't seem like Erie is cranking out two or three four star recruits each season, but it did seem like Iowa and Michigan State, in particular, did pretty well recruiting kids from Erie that we didn't seem all that interested in during the later Paterno years.
this is probably referring to Bob Sanders and Ed Hinkel. I do not remember or followed recruiting back then. Did Paterno and staff recruit those guys and they weren’t interested or did they just simply miss on those guys?
 
Erie is a strange situation. It might be the third largest city in the state and the local paper doesn't even send a reporter to the Penn State home games. It uses wire stories. It seems like a case of mutual indifference.
 
The Penn State sports info crew should start to cultivate the Erie media. It might not work but it can't hurt. It could help recruiting. The good thing is the feeling that Franklin made an effort to start paying attention to Erie, even if it isn't a hotbed of high school football.
 
Erie is a strange situation. It might be the third largest city in the state and the local paper doesn't even send a reporter to the Penn State home games. It uses wire stories. It seems like a case of mutual indifference.
The Erie media is really focused on the local colleges, especially Gannon. They also focus on the high schools.
 
ADVERTISEMENT