Today marked the first practice in pads for the Penn State football team's spring practice, and on days like this you can be glad you're not a tackling dummy or scout team member. These players have been waiting two long months to get out the frustration from the disappointing Outback Bowl loss.
Some quick notes from practice so far:
- Both Matt McGloin and Robert Bolden have been throwing with the first team, while Paul Jones takes most of his reps with the second team. Not too much should be read into this, though, as the beginning of spring practice is mostly for technical practices and conditioning.
- The 2011 roster was released, including 72 scholarship players and 30 non-scholarship players but not (yet) including the 15 2011 commits that did not enroll early (only one, Anthony Alosi, enrolled in January).
- Speaking of the roster, it appears that Penn State is currently oversigned, with (now counting the 15 extra recruits) 87 players on scholarship. Check here for an excellent article that explains PSU's predicament, but long story short, PSU has until July to trim two players from their scholarship ranks to make it to the 85 scholarship level mandated by the NCAA.
Finally, State College will be buzzing this weekend with 20+ high school juniors (and potentially a sophomore or two) that will converge on Happy Valley as a part of Penn State's pseudo-Junior Day. Rather than hold a giant camp-like day where many, many more junior recruits show up (like most of the bigger schools do), Penn State prefers smaller days so that the recruits can get a more intimate feel for the athletics, academics, and surroundings of Penn State. See here for the current updated list on the visitors ($).