The COVID-19 pandemic has halted sporting events throughout the world, but that doesn’t mean the machine that is college football stops.

Even with spring football and spring games cancelled, recruiting never ends, and it’s been a busy week of recruiting for Penn State. The Nittany Lions have picked up four new verbal commitments over the last three days, including three on Friday.

With the amount of top tier technology at Penn State’s disposal, it’s no surprise that it’s still having major success in recruiting despite the statewide stay-at-home order that is keeping everyone indoors.

“We’ve really been embracing the technology, we’re all over Zoom, and we’re having virtual coach’s meetings and team meetings all the time. I’ve also been able to get on for the position meetings as well. We’re having team meetings once a week and coach’s meeting every other day,” said Nittany Lions’ head coach James Franklin. “It’s been a scramble, it really has, but our staff has been awesome.”

This week’s recruiting flurry started with the verbal commitment of four-star safety prospect Jaylen Reed. Reed was the first of three Detroit, MI (Martin Luther King) natives to commit to Penn State in the past 72 hours, and is the 237th ranked player in the 247sports composite rankings - and the 10th best safety prospect. Reed also has good size at 6-0, 190 pounds.

Penn State then received a commitment Friday afternoon from Kalen and Kobe King - brothers from Detroit, MI (Cass Technical). Four-star Kalen King is the 328th ranked player in the 247 composite and the 24th ranked cornerback prospect. Kobe King is a three-star inside linebacker prospect and is ranked 452nd in the 247 composite and 20th at his position. Kobe is already physically well-matured at 6-1, 223 pounds.

The Nittany Lions wrapped up their busy Friday afternoon with four-star safety prospect Zakee Wheatley out of Severn, MD (Archbishop Spalding). Wheatley is ranked 308th in the country in the 247 composite and is the 21st ranked athlete prospect in the country, but Penn State is recruiting him as a safety. Wheatley possesses ideal size for the position at 6-2, 180 pounds.

“Recruiting has been challenging, and I think it’s been more challenging for the northeast schools than any other schools in the country because with some of the northeast schools, spring ball is a little bit later,” said Franklin. “Embracing the technology is the best thing we can do, utilizing FaceTime, virtual tours is something we’re going to have to do, just embracing everything that is at our disposal.”

Recruiting hasn’t missed a beat since the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, but like all college teams across the country, Penn State is faced with challenging player developmental issues. Spring football is one of the most important developmental sessions of the season and without it, both players and coaches are confronted with trying to get better without access to any of the program’s elite-level facilities.

“Being on the field is extremely important. It’s one thing to know the playbook and to understand the playbook, but going against your teammates on the field, you learn so much. There’s a ton of proposals being thrown out there, whether it’s a longer camp, whether it’s extra hours during the summer where we’re able to work with them, there’s a few proposals out there,” said Franklin. “The way I look at this whole thing is we try to compete at everything we do.

“The reality is the most successful people and the most successful teams are going to handle this challenge the best and come out of it the best. Are we going to be where we were before this started? No, but if handled the right way there’s an opportunity to learn some things about ourselves, and we can come out of this thing stronger.”