Sean Fitz and Ryan Snyder declassify Penn State recruiting stories from the last decade
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Penn State football recruiting has slowed in the last week, so today, the BWI Daily Recruiting show will tackle the most requested topic for the show. Recruiting insiders Ryan Snyder and Sean Fitz will declassify some of the most interesting stories to discuss what went on behind the scenes for surprise recruitments. They'll discuss stories that surprised them, commitments that happened that weren't supposed to, and recent ones that were scams.
Here's an excerpt from one of Snyder and Fitz's conversations from the show about former Penn State prospect Gary Wooten who had a unique recruiting story.
"But another one we'll go into is Gary Wooten. Remember Gary Wooten's class of 2011? You may remember some of the details a little bit better, but then I got an offer like right before was it while Kip was going on? I think it was like in August, mid-August," Synder said.
Fitz fills in the rest of the story about how the team, going through the NCAA sanctions, desperately needed bodies on the team. Wooten's recruiting story is interesting in that he doesn't have one. He just showed up.
"It was August 17th. They were well into camp at that point. And he was just basically joining the team and Ted Roof was the connection there. He's from Hialeah, Florida, and they needed guys badly at that point. There was some turnover there, and they just needed bodies that could play, especially at linebacker," Fitz recalls.
"Penn State did not get many guys from Florida at that point. And there's a situation where you just basically brought him in sight unseen and got out there, and he joined the team, never really did a thing. So I think he ended up his career at Duquesne after a couple of years at Penn State."
Penn State takes Kevin Givens from Pitt becuase they can
"Kevin was never one to talk all that much. This was before Twitter took off, right? I mean, that sooner was going on then, but not like it was now. And, you know, putting out all your offers. I do remember him coming up for a visit. And everything he said was still all about Pitt. And then he flipped to Penn State on signing day, which caught me by surprise," Snyder explains.
Fitz recalls the events that led up to Givens signing with Penn State and not all of them had to do with Givens' talent.
It was a surprise in the sense I remember we both had something prepared because we had reached out, or someone had reached out to both of us and let us know that it was happening. But we couldn't say anything until he actually signed that day. Remember, at this point, that was 2015. So that's a year into Franklin versus Narduzzi in the fact that they were just like at each other like crazy.
It felt at the time like not a petty move, but it felt like it was "we're going to take this guy because he's committed to you" instead of saying, "we're going to take this guy because we really like him," Fitz explained.
"He's in the NFL right now. So Penn State with a double in there."
Listen to the full show to learn more about the Andre Roy situation and who Michael Mauti bet 5,000 dollars wouldn't end up on the field for Penn State.
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Sean Fitz and Ryan Snyder declassify Penn State recruiting stories from the last decade