A lot of things have changed for Penn State since the football team joined the ranks of the Big Ten a decade ago.

One area that has been arguably the most dynamic in nature is recruiting.

Since the Nittany Lions became a member of the Big Ten, Penn State has lost its dominance in certain areas of the East Coast to other teams in the conference, but has also gotten its foot in the door of previously unrecruited regions of the country.

"Most of the kids we want, we get," Penn State football coach Joe Paterno said. "There are two schools that give us the most problems, which are Notre Dame and Stanford. Michigan would be the third school. "

In this year's recruiting class, the Fighting Irish won a recent recruiting battle with the Lions over California wide receiver Anthony Vernaglia. Last season, running back Jason Evans decommitted from Penn State and ultimately signed with Stanford.

This isn't to say that the Lions haven't been able to land top rated players. In the 2004 class alone, they have verbals from top-ranked linebacker Dan Connor, nationally ranked defensive lineman A.Q. Shipley and nationally ranked offensive lineman Greg Harrison. Both Stanford and Notre Dame showed heavy interest in all three prospects.

But Paterno said he expected this to happen once the program jumped aboard the Big Ten.

"One of the benefits that Penn State brought to the Big Ten was the fact that we were going to give the Big Ten a more visible appearance in the East," Paterno said. "When I got into the Big Ten, I told the coaches that 'we are going to open up an awful lot of opportunities for you guys to recruit from New Jersey and New York.' I foresaw that and talked to coaches about that."

Some of the conference's coaches have confirmed Paterno's original prediction.

At July's Big Ten Kickoff Luncheon, Purdue football coach Joe Tiller said that before Penn State joined the Big Ten, the Lions had a lock on all recruits who came out of New Jersey. Since then, the door has opened up for other schools, most notably Wisconsin, Iowa and the Boilermakers, to raid for talent.

In fact, some of those teams' best players are from the former Penn State stronghold of the Garden State. The Badgers' stud running back Anthony Davis is from Plainfield, NJ. Purdue defensive end Shaun Phillips, one of the nation's best pass rushers, hails from Willingboro, NJ. Last season, the Hawkeyes landed the top running back in New Jersey and The Star Ledger's Offensive Player of the Year, Albert Young.

This isn't to say Paterno and his staff haven't been able to land top prospects from New Jersey themselves. Starting defensive tackles Jay Alford and Tamba Hali, both nationally recruited high school players, are from the same northeast region of New Jersey.

However, the reason for the shift in the recruiting landscape over the years has been the fact that the perennial powerhouse has brought more exposure to other programs by playing them on a yearly basis.

So as Penn State's grip on the Eastern part of the country declined a little, its clout in the Midwest and Southeast increased. It became mutually beneficial.

Continued exposure on the national level is only one area that has given Penn State the inside track on particular regions and players across the country.

At least one other aspect of the Penn State football program is enough to have recruits drooling to don the blue and white.

Paterno, the man himself.

Some critics of the Lions' program consider Paterno a weak link in the chain of recruiting, specifically that the septuagenarian can't relate to 18-year old kids.

According to numerous players Paterno was able to sign, this is merely a construct other programs have drubbed up in a campaign to "dirty recruit" and smear Penn State.

"Other coaches tell you he won't be around much longer," linebacker T.C. Cosby said.

"If that is the biggest sell they have for their program then there is no real choice."

Coach Johnson and coach Paterno said they would be here for four years and I didn't worry about that. It wasn't too big a choice and I was very happy I knew coach would be here."

For others like quarterback Michael Robinson, the Paterno aura was all he needed to sign with the Lions back in 2001.

Said Robinson: "How can you say no to a living legend?"