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Update: The mystery commit has been revealed. Click here to read more.

Original story:

Penn State already has 27 verbal commitments in its recruiting Class of 2020 and three in its Class of 2021.

According to James Franklin, either one of those numbers grew by one on Wednesday night or the program picked up its first pledge from someone in the Class of 2022 or beyond.

The sixth-year Lions head coach probably had a grin on his face near the tail-end of the Penn State Coaches radio show on Thursday night. He was answering a fan’s question that centered on how the team’s recruiting success might improve after it was ranked No. 4 in the inaugural College Football Playoff poll on Tuesday, and that’s worth reading in its own right. We’ll get to it before long.

First, however, let’s look at another quote from Franklin that is sure to captivate his team’s fan base for at least a handful of days.

“We got another commitment [Wednesday] night," Franklin said on Nov. 7. “You guys don’t know about it, nobody really does, but you’ll find out probably on Monday.”

Let the suspense begin.

The only Class of 2020 commitment on the docket for Monday, Nov. 11, according to the 247Sports’ schedule tracker, is Miami defender Donell Harris, who doesn’t appear to be considering PSU but rather LSU and Texas A&M, according to 247Sports.

Theo Johnson, a four-star senior tight end from Canada, is the only player connected to the Lions with a public decision date set in the near future, but before anyone gets too excited, he likely wouldn’t have made the call this early as he won’t announce his choice until Nov. 18. Michigan, Iowa, and Georgia are also in the running.

Silent commitments are rare these days, what with the prevalence of social media and recruiting service prediction systems that all but give most pending decisions away, and its even more unique for a head coach to tease it. Both facts should make the wait for public word full of plenty of guesses, if nothing else, as the Lions prepare to battle No. 17 Minnesota on Saturday at Noon ET inside of TCF Bank Stadium.

Here’s the aforementioned full Franklin recruiting quote as transcribed by Lions247′s Mark Brennan, which was again in response to how the team’s 8-0 start and No. 4 CFP slot helps the Lions’ recruiting efforts:

"I don’t think winning is as impactful as maybe people think. But the people that we’re recruiting against and where we’re at, it’s the small margins that you’re fighting for. So it does help. Obviously, if the kid’s confused and it’s down between two really good schools, and you’re 8-0 and they’re 6-2, it may tip the scale.

“It does help, there’s no doubt about it. I will tell you, we did a really good job of recruiting. … You recruit very hard early on, and then what happens sometimes, as your season goes on and you’re 8-0 right now and you’re ranked wherever you’re ranked, and now maybe a few doors open up to you that you weren’t expecting, and you have most of your scholarships full already. For me, that’s great. You shouldn’t be taking commitments unless they’re guys you feel great about anyway, no matter what your record is. Fortunately, we’ve been able to do that.

“It’s an interesting circumstance to be in. We’ve already gotten started on next recruiting class, I think we’ve got three commitments already for the next class. So we’ll just kind of keep chugging away."

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