Ask Around: Which Penn State commit are you looking forward to watching most in their senior season?

Penn State’s Class of 2024 currently sits at 8th nationally in the On3 rankings and 24 members have declared their intentions to play for the Nittany Lions. This fall, they’ll get a chance to play out their final high school seasons across the country. Some could really turn heads and make a statement before earning their final rankings.

That leaves a burning question for the BWI staff.

Who are you looking forward to watching the most in their senior season?

Sean Fitz: Penn State’s Class of 2024 has already seen a bunch of movement in the On3 rankings and more should be on the table this season. I’ll start out with the guy that Penn State sources have hinted that we’re most off on and that’s Florida cornerback Antoine Belgrave-Shorter. He’s currently a three-star prospect on all four sites and carries an 88 rating at On3. Penn State is tickled to have both Belgrave-Shorter and Jon Mitchell on board. Some in the building not only believe that Belgrave-Shorter may be the better of the duo, but also that he’s Penn State’s best defensive back commitment in the class. 

The big unknown is speed, but not in the sense that he’s a 4.7 guy masquerading as a 4.4 guy. We just don’t have any solid data that would give an updated snapshot of his actual speed. That’s going to ding him a bit. He had a really strong spring that included two interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown. I don’t know where you’re throwing against this Mandarin secondary, which also features 2025 four-star safety Hylton Stubbs. Belgrave-Shorter and Mitchell should have shots to improve their pick totals this season. 

Ryan Snyder: Belgrave-Shorter is certainly the name we hear the most when it comes to who’s still being overlooked by recruiting sites. He’s very high on my list of intriguing players for this upcoming season. 

I know it’s always easy to pick a quarterback, but Ethan Grunkemeyer’s rise makes him very intriguing to me. Although we did see him camp at Penn State before, Grunkemeyer wasn’t really a player I was watching at all last season. He didn’t pick up a Power Five offer until April.

In the span of four months, he’s climbed from a solid regional prospect to one of the nation’s top 10 quarterbacks. That rise was mainly centered around his camp performances – which were very good – leaving us with plenty we can still learn about Grunkemeyer. 

As Charles Power has said a few times, mechanically, everything is there with Grunkemeyer. His junior tape leaves room for improvement though, and that’s something I’ll be watching closely. 

Sean Fitz: I was trying to avoid Grunkemeyer because it’s the easy answer, but the highlights from his first action senior year are pretty, pretty good. It’s looking like quite an evaluation.

I’ll be watching the two developmental offensive tackles closely this year. I think On3 may have overshot on Garrett Sexton with its latest ranking. That’s not to say he can’t be great, but I would have liked to see a little more before vaulting him into the Top 50 nationally. Sexton has a great frame and moves well, but he’ll need some time to learn the position and get that baseline knowledge in there that he will need to be a successful college offensive lineman. He’s now playing at about 265 pounds and that’s a big difference from before. He’ll need to pull it all together. 

On the other side, seeing Eagan Boyer at camp a few weeks back left me very intrigued. He’s probably 75 pounds from his playing weight, maybe more, but I’m really not worried about adding size. Boyer got his shoulder fixed this offseason and he’ll make that jump in weight at some point. But he has the athletic base to be a special offensive tackle. He’s nearly 6-8 and ran a 4.5 shuttle… that just doesn’t compute. On top of that, there’s apparently a mean streak that will come out. Of course, the technical aspects of the position are far more important, but knowing that he’s got an edge to him is helpful. I’m really looking forward to seeing how he progresses this fall. 

Ryan Snyder: This is another easy one, but I think T.A. Cunningham has to be mentioned as well. His stay in California has been well-documented by now. He missed out on quite a bit of his junior season. Then, when he did return, he didn’t have the impact many thought he might.

At 6-foot-6, 275 pounds, Cunningham has that size and athleticism that Penn State has often coveted but hasn’t been able to regularly find. Now at his fourth high school in as many years, it’s hard to know if he’ll get the coaching he needs to get back on the path many expected when he earned early five-star ratings. Either way, it makes him one of the players I’m very interested in watching this season. If we see the player we saw as a sophomore, Cunningham has the potential to be the steal of the class. 

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