College Football

Winning Is Everything

Joe Paterno has had a longstanding policy to not speak about his recruiting class on signing day, but last week the 79-year-old Penn State coach broke with tradition-though he still wasn't jumping up and down. "I think overall it was a good year for us, and we'll see what happens," he said. The special occasion was the announcement of a 24-player class that made every top 10 list and was ranked as high as No. 4 (behind USC, Florida and Texas).

Riding the momentum of an 11-1 season that was capped by a 26-23 triple-overtime win over Florida State in the Orange Bowl, Penn State signed nine defensive linemen, including 6'3", 260-pound blue-chipper Maurice Evans of Christ the King High in Middle Village, N.Y., and one of the nation's top quarterbacks, Pat Devlin of Downington East High in Exton, Pa. Overall the class is being hailed as the school's best since the LaVar Arrington-led 1997 class was a consensus No. 2 behind Florida State.

And while pundits debate the reasons why the Nittany Lions were able to put together such a stellar group, the most logical answer may be simply that Penn State is winning again. Though it had sent out dozens of scholarship offers, Penn State, which in 2003 and '04 won a total of seven games, had only eight oral commitments entering December. But after winning the Big Ten title-with the help of several high-profile freshmen, no less-the coaches went into the important December recruiting period with added ammunition.

"They go from 4-7 [in 2004] to 11-1, and it kind of convinced some of the more important recruits in this class that time hasn't passed Paterno by," says analyst Phil Grosz, who has followed Penn State recruiting for 26 years.

In January the class came together with commitments from Devlin, Evans, 300-pound offensive lineman Antonio Logan-El of Forestville (Md.) High, and defensive back A.J. Wallace of McDonough High in Pomfret, Md., who had not even considered the Nittany Lions until they beat Ohio State on Oct. 8. At least five players who had made oral commitments to other schools, including Devlin ( Miami) and Logan-El ( Maryland), wound up signing with Penn State instead. "We pecked away at a couple of kids," Paterno said. "We thought maybe we'd have a chance to expose them more to Penn State [in hopes] they might want to reconsider their decision, and fortunately we got some kids."

? Read more from Stewart Mandel at SI.com/collegefootball.