Franklin & Staff set for Video Conference with Top Recruits

With on-campus visits currently on hold, college coaches aren’t the only people finding ways to think outside the box when it comes to recruiting.

Down in Virginia, former Virginia Tech assistant coach Zohn Burden, who now runs G.A.M.E Academy, has found a way to bring the coaches to the players. Last week, with the help of Princess Anne assistant coach Deon Glover, who’s also the father of five-star cornerback Tony Grimes, over 100 recruits and high school coaches tuned in to a Zoom meeting room to watch North Carolina cornerbacks coach Dré Bly discuss a variety of topics

It ended up being a major success, and now James Franklin plans to do the same.

“So, what we’ve been doing is going into Zoom and setting up coaches with different players and families from all over,” Glover said. “We send out a link to everyone. We have coaches from different [high schools], parents, recruits, anybody. Because of compliance, the recruits and their parents have to stay muted. Zohn moderates it and is allowed to ask all sorts of different questions about recruiting and about that coach, their school, things like that. It’s kind of like a Q&A, and it gives families a chance to learn more about recruiting and how it all works.”

Glover went on to add, “Last week, we talked about recruiting, we talked about what kids should be doing during all of this, just a number of different things. We had over 100 people on that call and it was the first time we did it. It helps the families learn a lot about the process and different things they can be doing to help themselves, but also, it gives the coach an opportunity to pitch their university and their team. It was great the first time we did this and Coach Franklin was one of their first coaches I thought of when we passed this through compliance and learned that we could do this. He’s great for this.”

In addition to Franklin, other members of Penn State’s staff are also expected to be on the call. Assistant coaches Terry Smith, Tim Banks, John Scott, Tyler Bowen and Ja’Juan Seider will all join the Nittany Lion head coach. Scott is now the lead recruiter for the Virginia Beach region following Gerad Parker's decision to leave for West Virginia. Aside from coaches, Penn State will also have its Director of Performance Enhancement, Dwight Galt III, and Director of Player Personnel, Andy Frank, join the discussion.

“Because we have so many offers from Penn State down here in various classes, the coaches will get a chance to talk about and pitch their university, but also just talk about recruiting in general and different things that will help families out,” Glover said. “It’s open to everyone, so I don’t know all the high school coaches and players that will be on there, but last week we had players and coaches from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. They won’t be able to participate. They can only listen in. Of course, Coach Franklin will have most of the time, but we’re going to have their position coaches, their regional coach and their strength coach all on the call.”

In addition to this video conference, Glover said that he and his son have been speaking with Penn State nearly everyday. Grimes has already said publicly that he plans to use one of his official visits to Penn State this season, most likely for the game against Ohio State in October. The Buckeyes are one of a few schools pushing the Nittany Lions for his commitment, along with Georgia, North Carolina and Texas A&M.

“Everything is great with them. I feel like we talk with Coach Franklin or Coach Smith everyday," Glover said. "We talked to Coach Franklin over FaceTime just the other day. We’re always talking to Coach Smith, so everything is good. We talk to other members of their coaching staff from time to time, too. Everything is always smooth with Penn State.

"For us, we know which schools are standing out and Penn State is definitely one of them. We’re really trying to see which schools may separate themselves, because most of these schools haven’t really pulled away from each other yet.”

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