Penn State Class of 2012: Meet Jesse James

by Peter Gray on Feb 14, 2012 6:07 AM EST in Recruiting

The third player of the 2012 Penn State recruiting class was South Allegheny TE Jesse James. James committed last March, and was the only member of the 2012 class to enroll early. He is rated as a three star prospect by all of the major scouting services.

Physically, James is already a big kid at 6'7"/245, but after a year or two with a proper nutrition and workout program, he should be able to add a good amount of muscle that frame. Some of the scouting services think that he may be best suited to move to the offensive line, but he'd need to add somewhere north of 40 pounds in order to do that.

In the aftermath of The Thing, James' commitment to Penn State never wavered.

"I'm just getting ready to go up there in January, getting my body ready to go through spring practices and be ready to play next season," James said.

So yeah, he sounds like a good kid that wanted to go to Penn State for Penn State. For what the 2012 class lacks in star power, it appears to be packed with high character kids that weren't scared of a challenge. Hopefully there will be some diamonds in the rough. Whether one of them is James remains to be seen, but lord knows a contributing tight end would be a sight for sore eyes around these parts. It's unclear what we can expect from James in the short term. If he stays at tight end, the opportunity for early playing time will be there, as between Kevin Haplea and Garry Gilliam, there are no real proven commodities at the position.

And now for your viewing pleasure, the highlight reels:

0 recs | 16 comments

Comments

I saw him play at the Semper Fi bowl in Phoenix this year

I think he caught a pass from Skyler Mornihnweg. I don’t remember him blocking much but in person you can pretty much pick him out of a crowd any time he’s on the field. You can’t teach 6’7"

What really impressed me about him was that he said before that Jan. 3 game that he was going to enroll early. This was before we knew who the head coach would be. Welcome to the Penn State family Jesse.

NewJackCity - February 14, 2012 reply

I'm pretty excited about this kid.

He reminds me an awful lot of Brett Brackett. Except he’s coming in taller and as heavy as Brackett was as a senior, and he actually played TE in HS and won’t lose a year or two trying to be a QB. (Though in retrospect, I still wonder if Brett would have been a better option in 2009 and 2010 than Newsome/McGoin/Bolden). But I saw similar ‘deceptive speed’ and athleticism, and he was good about catching the ball with his hands.

Assuming Haplea and Gilliam are healthy and one of the ‘new guys’ are panning out, I still think he redshirts to learn the system, learn to block, and refine route running skills. But I really like his potential a couple of years down the road.

PSUEnrg02 - February 14, 2012 reply

I think you def redshirt him

He seems to have decent enough speed for a TE, it just looks like he needs some work on his route running. He could be the Gronk to Brenneman’s Hernandez.

skarocksoi - February 14, 2012 reply

Can you imagine

if we get Brenneman and have James? James is the kind of guy who is going to bust it every day and challenge the star and hopefully make both very good, kind of like a Hernandez/Gronk combination?

Also, could he play out of a H-back type of role in the backfield catching passes?

I am so pumped for high character guys like this who are all about the program, is it just me or does it seem like we now have 15 Stephon Green/Mike Mauti/Sean Lee’s on this team right now…

All these guys have “some ability” to get a DI offer, and if they are going to work as hard as they say, I think the sky is the limit

WE ARE….

va2pennstate - February 14, 2012 reply