Recruiting played a particularly important role in the Penn State story because, after former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted of child sex abuse in 2012, the NCAA hit the school with sanctions that reduced the number of football scholarships to as few as 65, down from the standard 85. That made depth a problem for the Nittany Lions. However, O'Brien's 2013 class was slightly better than Paterno's last class, in 2011. (The Inquirer did not factor in the 2012 class, which was signed just after O'Brien was hired and Paterno had died.)