Penn State recruits visit for Ohio State game, October 25, 2014

Penn State recruit Sterling Jenkins visits for the Ohio State game at Beaver Stadium on October 25, 2014. Joe Hermitt, PennLive

(JOE HERMITT)

Penn State offensive tackle recruit Sterling Jenkins is as tall as a sequoia, and he's being chopped down like one today.

The four-star lineman from Baldwin High School is making headlines, fairly or unfairly, for the fact that he's not expected to be named a first or second-team all-conference pick. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Mike White

, though the All-WPIAL teams have yet to be formally announced.

White wrote:

His situation shows how so much of college football recruiting and scouting service player rankings are based on size, potential and how players might perform at a camp or combine. And not on how a player performs on the field in pads for his team.





The futures of offensive linemen are extremely hard to predict and it's understandable why colleges recruited Jenkins. He is 6 feet 8, 300 pounds and looks like an NFL offensive lineman. But he has admitted he still has a long way to go as a player. It will be interesting to see if he ever gets there.

Standing at 6-8 and 305 pounds, Jenkins is a man amongst boys at the high school level, and he should be dominating like one, or so the logic goes.

By the standards of opposing coaches in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL), Jenkins is not holding up his end of the bargain. That could be a matter of substandard play on Jenkins' part or an impossible disconnect between what he is right now and what coaches believe he SHOULD be.

Jenkins is a raw prospect who is still relatively new to football and all the assignments and skills that go into playing the left tackle position. That wouldn't excuse him from making unsatisfactory progress between his junior and senior seasons, but he does deserve a break. Jenkins would be the first to say he has a long way to go.

"He's still learning," his father, Adam, told PennLive last summer. "He's still raw. A lot of recruiters say that and I think the college coaches like the fact that they can mold this guy into what they want because he has no habits to break. They're not ingrained habits."

In an ideal world, a top offensive line recruit would check off all the boxes for size, weight, strength, speed and skill, but how many actually do? And if a player is light in any areas, wouldn't you rather it be a fixable one, like strength or technique? As the saying goes, you simply cannot teach the rare blend of size and athleticism that Jenkins has.

Jenkins has a prototypical frame capable of adding even more weight at the next level, but he's a work in progress in almost every other area. The question, of course, is how those raw skills translate into college production, but that's always the question in the inexact science of player evaluation.

In that area, Jenkins is being viewed as a prospect with limitless potential. In order to reach his ceiling, he will need to hit the weight room hard, improve the quickness of his hands and feet, and iron out his technique as a pass and run blocker. Jenkins is a project for offensive line coach Herb Hand, which can be viewed as a good thing, as Adam Jenkins pointed out.

Sterling Jenkins is a smart kid with a sense of perspective, and he's enrolling at Penn State in January to get a jump start on his education and development. There's no way of predicting what his future holds, but the fact that he's not an all-conference pick isn't necessarily relevant.

Jenkins is worth every star in his rating for an NFL-caliber frame that can be shaped and molded to Hand's liking. The rest of his game might just be a matter of time.