Recruiting: Five things we learned in June

June went down as one of the busiest months we'll ever see on the recruiting trail. Following a nearly 16-month dead period, prospects all across the country travelled to State College to finally meet with the Nittany Lion coaching staff, many of whom for the first time. Between all the camps and visitors, not to mention satellite camps, James Franklin and his staff found themselves putting in overtime on the recruiting trail.

Although Penn State picked up just one commitment, we learned a lot about the Class of 2022 and so much more. Ryan Snyder gives his thoughts below.

You won't find many prospects who had a better month on the camp circuit than Kaden Saunders. Earlier this year, no one was surprised when Saunders dominated Rivals' regional camp in Indianapolis. He was expected to be the top receiver that day. But what he did for an encore this month was even better, earning a ton of praise following Under Armour's Future 50 camp, then again a week later when he took home MVP honors at the Rivals Five-Star Challenge in Atlanta.

"The Penn State commit is such a sharp route runner," wrote Rivals National Recruiting Director Adam Gorney. "He can create space between him and any cornerback, and then he caught anything thrown his way. The Westerville (Ohio) Westerville South standout is currently ranked as the No. 22 wide receiver in the class. After seeing many of the others over the last year or so, there’s no question Saunders could easily move up a lot in the next round of rankings."

Where he ends up in the rankings is still to be determined, but I think he should absolutely be included in the Rivals100 when it's updated again in August. Including him in the Rivals100 would also put him among the top 10 wide receivers in the nation, and there's no doubt in my mind that he deserves to be part of that group.

The Nittany Lions are in the mix with a lot of their top overall prospects still, but if you polled fans, I think most would agree that five-star defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton sits at the top of their wishlist. A native of Baltimore, Dennis-Sutton plays at a school that's become a pipeline to Penn State over the years in McDonogh. Currently, Dvon Ellies, Curtis Jacobs and PJ Mustipher are all on Penn State's roster, as well as walk-on Will Knutsson. In fact, last year's class was the first in four years that the Lions haven't added someone from McDonogh, and that was more so because they chose to pursue other players than the staff not landing a player they wanted.

As good as those three players are, they weren't as coveted as Dennis-Sutton, who ultimately took three official visits to Georgia, Penn State and Alabama. He elected not to visit any schools last weekend, although there was talk of him potentially taking one more unofficial visit to Athens.

But even without that return trip, it's become clear that he's torn between Penn State and Georgia. James Franklin and his staff were recruiting Dennis-Sutton nearly an entire year before Georgia even offered, but even with a long-standing relationship, it's not a certainty that Dennis-Sutton ends up in State College. This feels like it could truly could either way. As of now, Dennis-Sutton hasn't announced a commitment date, but we expect him to do that soon.

It's kind of funny, at least, to me, that the NCAA still labels the month of June as a "Quiet Period." It's given that status because coaches aren't allowed to travel to a player's school or home. School visits to scout prospects are labeled an "Evaluation Period," while those four weeks in December and January when coaches can take in-home visits are labeled the "Contact Period."

Anyway, my point here is that there was plenty of evaluating and one-on-one contact in June. Before we even get into visitors, let's start with camps. Not including the Future Lions Camp, which is for kids in middle school, Penn State hosted somewhere north of 1,300 high school-aged players for seven different camps between June 1-27. Coordinating those alone can't be easy, but that doesn't even include the Lion Strong 7-on-7 & Big Man Challenge last Friday, which saw 54 high school teams come from all over the Mid-Atlantic to compete in a tournament that starts around 10 a.m. and lasts well into the evening. For the record, Highland Springs (Va.) defeated Neumann Goretti by a single point in the championship game, and somewhere around 40 Division I prospects participated.

Oh, and we can't forget about satellite camps, as we know members of the staff attended Florida State's SunShine Showcase, as well as The Michigan College Showcase on the campus of Ferris State up in Grand Rapids. In regards to visitors, by our count, it was somewhere north of 120 prospects who took either an official or unofficial visit. Looking at the list, there were only two days during that period where Penn State's staff truly got a break.

And that brings me to my next subject...

Penn State's recruiting staff has grown over the years, but there are quite a few schools who have double the amount, maybe even more, organizing the kind of events I listed above. Obviously, the coaches and everyone up in Lasch deserves a ton of credit for what they did last month, but there are eight people specifically that I want to give a shoutout to.

Andy Frank - Director of Player Personnel

Kenny Sanders - National Recruiting Coordinator

Dann Kabala - Director of High School Relations

Destiny Rodriguez - Recruiting Coordinator for Operations & Visits

Caleb Tyler - Recruiting Coordinator for Marketing & Creative Content

Chris Mahon - Assistant Recruiting Coordinator - Offense

Alan Zemaitis - Assistant Recruiting Coordinator - Defense

Hunter Carson - Assistant Recruiting Coordinator

Those eight people, as well as a handful of interns and graphic design contributors, worked tirelessly last month. Just trying to keep up with everything had me working everyday, but I can't even pretend to know how grueling June was for Penn State's recruiting staff. Myself and others always credit the coaches when we write up commitment stories, and they deserve a ton of credit, too, but it's the people I listed above who bring it all together to make sure everything is perfect when those top prospects roll into town. Next time you run into one of them downtown, buy them a beer. Check that, buy them two.

Penn State added wide receiver Tyler Johnson to its class back on June 21. A three-star prospect, Johnson earned 16 scholarship offers over the past year, and it wasn't until May 18 that the Nittany Lions joined the race. About a month later, Johnson came to campus for a workout, which led into an official visit 48 hours later. He ended up committing to the staff on the ride home to Virginia, and announced the following day.

If you would've told me that Johnson was Penn State's only commitment in June, I wouldn't have believed you. Now, I didn't expect a flood of commitments - I believe I set the over/under around three - but I thought a few others would've made spur of the moment commitments.

However, we're now entering a stretch that should see a flood of commitments, to both Penn State and elsewhere, over the next three weeks. LB Keon Wylie and DT Kaleb Artis are both expected to join the Nittany Lions over the weekend. I've already logged FutureCasts for both of them, as well as OL JB Nelson. The Lackawanna prospect hasn't really given us a date yet, but it should be soon. DE Tyrese Fearbry could be another player to watch over the weekend. There's been some talk about a commitment in the days ahead, but nothing concrete from his camp.

Of course, we're still waiting on commitment dates from both RB Nick Singleton and five-star DE Dani Dennis-Sutton, but both players, as well as probably a dozen others, are expected to make a move in the near future.

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