Up Close & Personal: PSU an 'ideal fit' for LB Ellis Brooks
Division I recruiting is filled with ups and downs for every prospect, but for those who are still undecided in the weeks leading up to signing day, it can sometimes reach a different level altogether.
Take linebacker Ellis Brooks, for instance. A four-star prospect from the Benedictine School in Mechanicsville, Va., Brooks earned more than 20 scholarship offers during his sophomore and junior seasons. He also took about a dozen visits over that span, giving him a head start on most of his peers.
One of those visits was to Penn State in the summer of 2015. Almost immediately, Brooks knew that he would fit in well with the Nittany Lions, but there was a problem: He didn’t have a scholarship offer.
“It was always a dream school for me,” Brooks said. “The fans, the program, the academics – it was always an ideal fit for me, and I knew that very early on in the process when I took my [first] visit.
“But most players have dream schools. Once you start the recruiting process, that kind of goes out the window because you’re not guaranteed to get an offer from the school you love. That’s kind of how things played out for me, at first.”
At 6-foot-1, 230 pounds, Brooks was always among Penn State’s top options at middle linebacker. However, the Lions’ depth chart didn’t work in his favor, as outside linebacker was clearly a bigger need in the 2017 class. By the end of the 2015 season, the staff had also earned a commitment from another player at his position, fellow Virginia native Dylan Rivers. Brooks soon realized that he was going to have to find a different school.
That spring, he thought he found the ideal fit in Duke. Head coach David Cutcliffe had built up plenty of momentum, and the school offered an elite education that only a handful of others could match, so Brooks committed to the Blue Devils in March 2016.
“Education was always so important to me,” he said. “Schools like Duke and Northwestern, which was another school I visited, were always going to be high on my list.”
But the other thing that Brooks coveted was the opportunity to play for one of the nation’s best programs. As time went on, he felt as if he could find a better combination of the two, so Brooks decided to open up his recruitment again in the beginning of the summer. Maryland, Michigan and Northwestern all appeared to be serious contenders in the months that followed, but it wasn’t until the end of his senior season that things really heated up.
On the same day of his first official visit, which was to Maryland on the weekend of Dec. 9-11, Brooks received an intriguing offer from Oregon. The Ducks had just wrapped up a disappointing 4-8 season, but Brooks knew all about their recent history. Just a few weeks later, he added another major offer, this one from Southeastern Conference power LSU. Those overtures put him in a difficult position.
“Both Oregon and LSU had a lot to offer, and I enjoyed my visits to both,” he said. “I liked a lot at Oregon, but it was pretty far from home. Plus, I was still looking for something better academically. I was probably headed to Maryland if I didn’t get the Penn State offer.”
Before he had even arrived home from his trip to Eugene in January, Brooks’ recruitment took another turn. That same weekend, Penn State hosted almost all of its verbally committed players, and one of them – Rivers – was having second thoughts. Rivers ultimately switched his commitment to Virginia Tech, opening the door for Brooks. Within 24 hoursof learning that he had a scholarship offer from the Lions, he knew that he would be visiting on the final weekend in January.
“I already knew what they had to offer on the field and I always knew that they had a great academic program,” Brooks said. “So when I went up there for my official visit, it was basically just to make sure that the coaches really wanted me and that I wasn’t some backup plan for them.
“We were in communication over that final month or two, so it wasn’t totally random. The talks on the phone were always very positive, and it was the exact same way when we met in person. That’s when I knew this was the place. It didn’t take long.”
Brooks proudly announced his commitment on Jan. 30, the day after he returned home from his visit. 30. After playing in the Under Armour All-America Game earlier that month, where he was coached by former Nittany Lion great LaVar Arrington, it proved to be the perfect way to cap one of the craziest months of his life.
“It was definitely stressful, no doubt about that,” Brooks said, laughing. “But I wouldn’t have wanted it to go any other way. Knowing that I’m going to be playing at Penn State now is a dream come true. I can’t wait to work hard and make Nittany Nation proud.”