Penn State Football Countdown to Kickoff: No. 97 T.A. Cunningham
The countdown to kickoff rolls on and today we're down to 97 days until Penn State football returns on August 31 against the West Virginia Mountaineers.
In today's countdown to kickoff profile, Happy Valley Insider highlights No. 97 defensive tackle T.A. Cunningham.
JOIN TODAY AND GET 30 DAYS FREE! | THE LIONS DEN FORUM | PENN STATE FOOTBALL 2025 RECRUITING CLASS | PENN STATE BASKETBALL RECRUITING
THE RECRUITMENT
Cunningham committed to the Nittany Lions as part of their 2024 recruiting class. The Georgia native took an official visit to Happy Valley in mid-June and made his commitment a little over a month later in late July. All in all, the Nittany Lions beat out the likes of Miami, Texas A&M, Michigan, and Oklahoma to land Cunningham.
That being said, it was a long and winding road for Cunningham to Happy Valley. He spent time in Georgia, Southern California, and Miami before moving back to Georgia. All the moving for Cunningham also came with the 6-foot-6 defensive tackle not playing a ton of football over the last few years, leading to questions and uncertainty from other programs. Despite all the movement and uncertainty, the Nittany Lions remained a big part of Cunningham's recruitment throughout. Both John Scott Jr and Deion Barnes did a strong job in recruiting Cunningham as the Nittany Lions' defensive line coach.
2024 OUTLOOK
Cunningham hasn't played a ton of football over the last few years with that, its going to be a while until Cunningham makes an impact on the field with the Nittany Lions. The 2024 season will without a doubt being a redshirt season for Cunningham.
COACH SPEAK:
"First of all, I think T.A. is a guy that got on the national recruiting scene very early for a reason, right. There was a lot of traits that he showed that were obvious to everybody.
And then, obviously, when you talk about whether it's moving high schools, or whether it's limited film based on injuries, for us, we just want to make sure that we understand the reasons behind all those things, and the thing that's great about T.A. and his family is they have been totally transparent about all those things, and I think you guys know, we are thorough and detailed with everything that we do.
So here is a guy that had some challenges and some adversities that he had to overcome, and the family had to overcome, and then some physical injuries and setbacks and things like that. But the reality is, at the end of the day, that body type, those traits, those skills are still there, and we think he's a highly-motivated young man.
We just feel like he's one of those guys that gets into our structure and our system, he's going to flourish and be one of those guys that everybody is talking about a couple years from now, in terms of a guy that Penn State got a steal on because we trust in our evaluation process, and really did a lot of digging to make sure we understood all the details and were comfortable with the details." - Penn State head coach James Franklin
--------------------------------------------------------------
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel