Recruiting: Catching Up with 2020 OL Jimmy Christ

For most of Penn State’s incoming freshmen, the COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted their development heading into their first season of college football. Not only did those that enrolled early miss out on spring practice, but now that they’re back at home, most lack the equipment to continue the workouts they started back in January.

Those that haven’t enrolled yet find themselves in a similar position, but that’s not the case for Sterling, Va., native and four-star offensive tackle Jimmy Christ. In fact, Christ believes that Virginia's stay-at-home order may have actually helped him.

“It definitely stinks not seeing friends and keeping a normal routine at school,” Christ said. “But at the same time, I also recognize that this has helped me in some ways. This has been a good opportunity to try and get better before I go to school. I’ve been trying to take advantage of that.”

To understand why he thinks that, it’s important to know that Christ comes from a very athletic family. One of six children, Jimmy is the youngest of four boys. His oldest brother, Mike, was a long snapper and defensive lineman at Monmouth. He was followed by Matt, who played offensive line at Virginia Tech, and then Tommy, who just finished his redshirt sophomore season at Virginia. There are also two sisters, one of whom, Jackie, just finished her freshman season on the women’s basketball team at Appalachian State.

All of Christ’s siblings have helped form him into the athlete and person that he is today, but Tommy may be having the biggest impact currently. Just like every other college athlete across the country, Tommy is also forced to work out at home, giving his younger brother another Power Five football player to train with.

“I’ve been working with Tommy a lot,” Christ said. “We also have a complete weight room in our basement. We have a pulley system, bench press, squat rack, all of that. We have a bunch of free weights, too, so between having him home and having the equipment I need, this has allowed me to focus on training and getting better more than normal.”

While many of his future teammates have been filling bags with rocks to bench press over the past two months, Christ has been using the original workout Dwight Galt and Penn State’s strength and conditioning staff created for him after he signed his letter of intent. In addition to training, he also just completed his classes at Dominion High School, officially graduating on Monday.

Originally, he was supposed to begin classes at Penn State this coming week, May 18. Since that's now on hold, Christ enrolled at a local community college to complete a few general education classes over the next six weeks. The plan is to then begin taking classes at Penn State when the second summer session begins in July.

His graduation also means that Christ is now allowed to join Penn State’s weekly team meetings over Zoom. His first meeting will likely be a bit different than those that come in the weeks ahead.

“That was fun doing that for the first time,” Christ said. “For this meeting, Stefen Wisniewski joined us. He played for the Chiefs this past season. We listened to him explain what it takes to be in the NFL for 10 years and what makes a good offensive lineman. So, my first meeting with them was pretty neat.”

Christ was already speaking with Penn State’s new offensive line coach a few times each month. He admitted that he was upset to see Matt Limegrover leave the program when he first heard the news, but also said it didn’t take long for him to warm up to Phil Trautwein.

“When Limegrover left, I was upset, but I know both are great coaches,” Christ said. “When they hired Trautwein a few weeks later, I quickly realized that he’s a great guy and a great coach. Since then, he’s been checking in about every other week. I think that’s been really good. He’s always been helpful.”

Christ was the second-to-last prospect to join Penn State’s Class of 2020, switching his commitment from Virginia back on Nov. 8. Over the past six months, he said he’s become close with the other four offensive linemen in the 2020 class, and that bond should have fans excited about the future.

“I wouldn’t say there’s anyone I talk with the most, which is good,” Christ said. “I think we have a really good mix between us. The O-line group is pretty close. We’re talking all the time. We FaceTime and talk a lot. We have a group chat between all of us and we probably talk every day. There’s a really good bond between us already. All of us just can’t wait to get started together.”

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