The Nittany Lions played Ohio State tough on Saturday, but it was a pair of players that Penn State missed on that made the difference for the Buckeyes.
By now, every Penn State fan has heard enough of James Franklin's infamous "good program, great program" speech following his team's 2018 loss to Ohio State in Beaver Stadium and in a game in which his team held a 12-point lead in the fourth quarter.
While much of what Franklin said in the speech is true, the quote rings hollow as the Nittany Lions have not since made the jump from a good program to a great.
Among the foremost areas in which Penn State has been a good but not great program in Franklin's tenure is in recruiting. Whether it's due to the head coach himself, his staff, Penn State's facilities or any additional number of factors is up for debate. But the reality is that Penn State, even while currently boasting the No.4 overall class in the country in 2022 according the Rivals Team Rankings, has been far off the nation's elite programs in recruiting for a significant period of time.
Among those elite programs, and perhaps chief among them, sits Ohio State. The Buckeyes have always recruited at an absolutely torrid level, but they've since reached new heights under Urban Meyer and now Ryan Day.
From 2017 to 2021, spanning the last five recruiting cycles, Ohio State has had a top-five ranked recruiting class four times compared to just once for Penn State in 2018. That includes a jaw dropping five 5-star players a year ago, headlined by the No. 1-ranked player in the nation, quarterback Quinn Ewers,
While Franklin and strength and conditioning coach Dwight Galt have built the Nittany Lions into one of the more athletic programs in the nation, the difference in speed and strength between the two teams was startling at time during Saturday night's showdown. This was highlighted even more so by a pair of players that had been recruited heavily by the Nittany Lions, maybe even leaning their way at some point, before ultimately choosing to play their college football in Columbus.
The first of those two players was 2018 four-star defensive end Tyreke Smith. The Buckeyes are as good as any program in the nation of keeping their elite talent in state, though Smith looked for a while as if he was going to elude their grasp.
Franklin and former defensive line coach Sean Spencer made the Cleveland Heights prospect an early priority and as he rose through the rankings while the cycle progressed, it looked as if the Nittany Lions were a serious player and perhaps even in the driver's seat to land his commitment. Smith was a late bloomer that Franklin and his staff identified fairly early on which, when combined with strong relationships and a rumored want to leave the state, put Penn State in a good position to pull off a coup.
Following a December official visit, the last of his five, the Nittany Lions' staff felt good about their chances to add Smith to a class that already featured Micah Parsons and Odafe Oweh.
Instead, Smith had a late change of heart, cancelling an in-home visit with Franklin and Spencer shortly thereafter and officially committing to the Buckeyes at the 2018 Under Armour All-American game.
Flash forward to Saturday and Smith gave the Nittany Lions fits, troubling fellow 2018 signee Rasheed Walker all night and recording the strip sack that wound up being returned for a touchdown by Jerron Cage.
The second such player who swung the game for Buckeyes was true freshman running back TreVeyon Henderson, who has announced himself almost immediately as one of the country's top backs.
Henderson's path to Ohio State wasn't as dramatic as the one taken by Smith, but Penn State felt good about its chances to land the dynamic playmaker earlier in his recruitment.
Like Smith, Henderson wasn't immediately the elite prospect he'd become. Instead, actually, he was outside of the Rivals250 altogether before his junior season. Following that season, however, he skyrocketed, making his debut at No. 64 overall before settling at No. 81 and as the nation's fourth-ranked running back.
The Nittany Lions offered Henderson in July of 2019, more than two months before the Buckeyes who came on in September as his stock skyrocket. He then took an unofficial visit to Happy Valley in mid-November, after which Penn State felt it was firmly in the mix for Henderson. Shortly thereafter, the growing COVID-19 pandemic shut down all on-campus recruiting activity and Henderson was never able to take a planned visit to Columbus.
That didn't matter, however, as Henderson built a strong rapport with Day as well as assistants Tony Alford and Al Washington before eventually pledging to the Buckeyes in late March 2020, joining Evan Pryor to help build the top-ranked running back class in the nation.
Henderson's impact has been immediate in Columbus, as he's become the starting running back for the Buckeyes and regularly looked the most dynamic player on an offense full of elite talent. Against Penn State, he carried the ball 28 times for 154 yards and a touchdown, including a huge 68-yard rush late in the third quarter to give Ohio State a two-possession lead.
While Smith and Henderson was hardly the only difference makers on Saturday night and far from the only players to land in Columbus over Happy Valley, they encapsulate the types of players that lift you from a good program to a great program and emphasize the level that Franklin is trying to lift the Penn State program to in the last five years and, potentially, the next five.
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