As Penn State’s cornerbacks coach, Terry Smith is tasked with balancing the present against the future.

With his two starters set to be honored on Saturday’s senior day ceremony before the kickoff against Nebraska, he’s preparing to send off a pair of four-year contributors while also configuring in the back of his mind how to groom the next in line in order for them to take the seniors' place for next season.

As Penn State’s defensive recruiting coordinator, a similar balance exists for Smith.

The final games of the Nittany Lions’ season have his attention, but looming large is the early signing period that begins Dec. 20.

Penn State currently has 22 verbally committed prospects in its Class of 2018 and the hope for Smith and his fellow coaches is for most, if not all, of the recruits to sign early. That’s undecided at this point and until they have a better idea of which recruits will sign and which won’t, the coaches are unsure when they’ll recognize the class as a whole. During the first signing classes of James Franklin's tenure at PSU, he held a ceremony to honor the newcomers after February's signing day. It's to be determined if that'll be pushed ahead a couple months this year.

“The greatest challenge for us is, when do we do our big day singing day (event)?” said Smith. “We’re thinking because we have the majority of our class already committed to us that what we’ll possibly do the big signing day in December, but that hasn’t been determined. That’s been the topic of conversation here. Recruiting is recruiting. We work hard to make sure we build great relationships with these guys and their families and our families to make sure each guy is a proper fit for the program and hopefully the guys who are already committed to us will all sign on the 20th. If they don’t, we’ll keep working hard to get them to sign in February. It’s an ongoing process and there hasn’t been any hitches or hiccups – knock on wood – to speak of right now.”

The recruitment of the committed prospect is ongoing until they sign a letter of intent, whenever that might be. Maintaining good graces until then with the prospect and his family – “It’s about relationships, he said – maintains priority.

Coinciding with that during this cycle comes another role for Smith, especially for those high schoolers who are already on board. With the landscape of the process changing amid their first and only recruitment, Smith fills the roles of both recruiter and adviser in helping them navigate their decision making.

“It’s a combination of both,” Smith said. “We’re obviously advising them on how we handle things, but we’re still recruiting them. We can’t take for granted that these guys are already signed. We have to make sure we fulfill the process and handle our business and make sure those guys are completely comfortable because other schools are going to reach out to these guys to make sure they’re completely happy. If there is a void in there that they’re not happy about – maybe we’re not contacting him enough – that can open up a door for a kid to jump ship. We have to make to sure we recruit these guys as if they’re not committed and give them our undivided, full attention as we did before they were committed.”

Then if it goes according to plan, the work put in now could help free some available time on the back end.

In January, when the coaches otherwise would be traveling the country tracking down prospects, both committed and not, more hours are set to become available. With that time Smith and his fellow recruiters will hone in on those who don’t sign early, while also blazing wider trails into the Class of 2019.

“The load is never light,” Smith said. “We’d love to sign 90 percent of the guys so that way the 10 precent focus is on however many (remaining) scholarships we have available for this class. Then January comes, it’s full 2019 recruitment. It allows us to get ahead and figure out who the top prospects are to start making in-roads with those guys.”

In it’s Class of 2019, Penn State has two verbally committed prospects in QB Ta’quan Roberson and DB Keaton Ellis.