James Franklin Talks Lingering Roster Needs Following Early Signing Day

While National Signing Day provides college football programs the chance to improve their rosters for the years to come, that doesn’t mean the work of building a team ever really finishes. In fact, most programs are still window shopping for players both on the recruiting trail and the transfer portal well after the early signing period ends. Even teams like Penn State — which made the nation’s No. 14 rated class [according to the 247 Network] official on Wednesday — are always trying to get better.

In the end, it’s not a question of if, but who.

“I think if you look at us, what we’ve been able to do, I think overall good,” Penn State’s coach James Franklin said on Wednesday of the Nittany Lions’ recruiting efforts. “If you look on the offensive side of the ball, we’d like to get another offensive lineman if we could, specifically an offensive tackle, or a guy that’s like the guys that we signed in this class that have position flexibility.”

“I’d like to see us get another offensive lineman and then wide receiver. That’s a position where I could see us signing a couple more guys at that position just to make sure that we have the competition at that position on a similar scale that we do at tight end and running back. I think that’s going to be important for us moving forward.”

Fortunately for Penn State a trio of talented offensive linemen have joined the program as part of the 2023 class giving Franklin and offensive line coach Phil Trautwein pieces to work with moving forward. As for receiver, Carmelo Taylor serves as the Nittany Lions’ only truly receiver prospect of the class but joins a healthy helping of young talent in that same room already on campus.

“I think you look at [Alex] Birchmeier, J’ven [Williams], maybe [Anthony] Donkoh, I think they can play all five positions in terms of the length to play tackle, the girth to play guard and the intelligence to play center. We’ll see how that plays out,” Franklin added. “Offensive tackles that are still out there, wide receivers that are still out there, we’ll be in pursuit.”

As for the defensive side of the ball the game often starts and ends in the trenches. Then again if you can’t get to the quarterback you better be able to cover. In short – Penn State will take all the talent it can get on the defensive side of the ball. The Nittany Lions signed two defensive linemen this class in Mason Robinson and Tyriq Blanding while safeties King Mack and Elliot Washington highlight a four-man quartet of safety prospects.

“On the defensive side of the ball, we’d like to get a defensive tackle, possibly another defensive end just from a numbers perspective,” Franklin added. “Again, depending on how this thing plays out in the back end as defensive back, we could be in the need for one or two more defensive backs. We’ll see how this whole thing plays out. But those would be probably needs that I would say that are still out there that we’d like to try to address either through the second signing day with high school prospects or some transfer portal prospects.”