The production of NFL talent, some may argue, is not the ultimate goal of any college program. But recruits and scouts are bound to notice trends linking the positions that established professionals play and what school they come from.
Need a running back? Check out USC. Want to be drafted as a defensive lineman? Sign with LSU. Wideouts? Start the Gator chomp.
High school recruits know where to go, and professional scouts know where to look if they want to become, or find, a stud player at a specific position.
For quarterbacks, Penn State hasn't been mentioned consistently in the discussion since before many current college players were born.
Take a look at the Nittany Lions in the NFL, and you'll find more than one linebacker, running back, wideout, defensive back or lineman. Try to find more than one quarterback, and you'll be searching for a while.
Kerry Collins, now a 13-year veteran backup with the Tennessee Titans, is the only former Penn State quarterback in the pros.
"It's hard for me to really understand why there haven't been more NFL players, quarterbacks, to come out of Penn State since I left there," Collins said in a telephone interview.
Since Collins guided an undefeated 1994 team and was picked in the first round of the 1995 NFL draft, just one other Nittany Lion signal caller, Wally Richardson, has been selected to be a quarterback at football's highest level. Others signed as undrafted free agents, but none found sustained success.
"The thing is, NFL teams will go anywhere for a quarterback. If there's a pro-style offense, they'll go into Penn State or wherever there's someone that is big, strong, can throw the football and is mobile," said Dan Shonka, a former NFL scout with 16 years experience and the current general manager of Ourlads.com scouting services. "If a guy has got ability, the NFL will come to you. It doesn't matter where you go to school."
So why hasn't Penn State developed a pro quarterback since Collins? And what are people saying about this fact beyond State College?
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Part of the reason, and concern, begins with offensive philosophy.
The term "Three yards and a cloud of dust," associated with longtime Ohio State coach Woody Hayes' ground-attack is a phrase that's stuck to several Big Ten teams, Penn State included, for the past two decades.
Joe Paterno's offense has yet to shed the run-oriented label.
"Kids perceive that as boring," said Ray Reitz, coach of the Jeannette (Pa.) High School football team, which is quarterbacked by Terrelle Pryor, the No. 1 recruit in the country, according to Rivals.com. "For example, you don't play Michigan with the I-formation. You watch Appalachian State and you watch Oregon beat them with the spread and [Penn State] goes up and plays the I. On the same token, though, you have to play what you do."
The "spread" -- a style that features multiple wideouts with a pass happy and multi-talented quarterback -- is the type of offense Reitz runs with Pryor. It's an approach not traditionally associated with Penn State.
"A lot of teams are using a pro-style quarterback, and Penn State would rather run the ball," said Shonka, who was also college assistant, head coach and recruiter for 13 years before becoming a pro scout. "I don't think they get a lot of drop-back quarterbacks or the spread-type quarterback. Penn State just likes to run the ball more."
It can be argued that the current quarterback, Anthony Morelli, has spread offense potential: a strong arm and decent mobility. Plus, he has no shortage of wideouts to throw to. Even, to an extent, the coaching is in place.
"Galen Hall is the offensive coorindator, isn't he?" Shonka said. "He used to run some great offenses [at Oklahoma and Florida] and be able to move the ball a lot of places. I don't know, maybe he is handicapped a little bit."
Shonka hinted the overriding opinion comes from the 80-year-old builder of the Penn State program, Paterno, whose thoughts filter down to the plays called on the field.
"I respect Penn State but their philosophy and what we do is totally on the other end of the spectrum," Reitz said. "That I-formation is a tough run. Southern Cal does it, but they're getting the best players in the country. If you spread teams out and make them guard you in space, I don't know many people can touch you."
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Alongside Penn State's perceived offensive identity is the tradition that young players wait their turn for a starting role. Rarely are freshmen even permitted to talk to the media, much less play.
Zack Mills' early starts in 2001 as a redshirt freshman were exceptions to the rule, but even he wasn't scheduled to play immediately. He came on midseason in place of a struggling Matt Senneca.
Michael Robinson, who Paterno described as one of the best football players in the nation several times, only played one-full year behind center. Collins' only complete year came in 1994.
"One thing that makes it hard to evaluate Penn State players is Joe doesn't let people pine for the underclass guys," said Gil Brandt, an NFL.com draft analyst who was the Dallas Cowboys vice president of player personnel from 1960 through 1989. "Joe's not the only one. That's how Coach [Tom] Landry felt about playing quarterbacks, bringing them along slowly."
But in the current recruiting marketplace, with teenagers finding photos and biographies of themselves on national Web sites and in newspapers, many of the nation's top quarterback prospects want to play right away and often find their way to schools that promise that chance.
"I really do believe a lot of times, when it comes time to select what college to go to, kids in the back of their mind, they're thinking, 'Where can I go to get the opportunity to play the earliest?' " said Jim Cantafio, who coached Michigan quarterback Chad Henne at Wilson High School in West Lawn, Pa.
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Henne was one of the kids that wanted to play early.
It was four recruiting seasons ago and the Pennsylvania product narrowed his college choices to Penn State and Michigan. Two days before Henne made his announcement at a press conference, he contacted the Penn State coaches to inform them he would be playing the next season in blue-and-white. But as Cantafio said, "he could have flipped a coin."
Henne, expected to be one of the nation's best recruits, changed his mind and signed with Michigan, partly because of the opportunity to start as a freshman and partly because of the great NFL success Wolverine quarterbacks have enjoyed recently. Two of them -- Tom Brady, a three-time Super Bowl champion, and Brian Griese -- are currently starting. Three others are in the league as backups.
"The obvious he'll tell you is that the tradition of quarterbacks at Michigan in the NFL is second to none," Cantafio said.
One other important reason, perhaps the most, was the bond Henne felt with Michigan quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler, a former Wolverine backup. Henne became more comfortable with Loeffler than he did with Penn State counterpart Jay Paterno.
"Scott was like a big brother to him," Cantafio said. "That closeness with him was the difference in him going to Michigan over Penn State. Nothing negative about Jay Paterno or anything like that. It had nothing to do with anything else. Sometimes people say things that are not true. I know the truth. The bottom line why he went there is he felt more comfortable with Scott and he trusted Scott."
The relationship between quarterback coach and his player, is of course, "paramount," as Shonka, the former NFL scout, said. It takes an evolving relationship between recruiter and recruit to land a star prospect. Convincing a recruit that the perception of a certain school isn't true could be part of that.
"If [recruits] have a quarterback coach that recruits them that makes it all the more important because they know a lot of about them. The coach that recruits him, or the coordinator, he's going to know everything about that young man and they build from there," Shonka said.
Then that relationship develops during the four, or possibly five years of school.
"What you want to have from your quarterback coach is to prepare you as well as they can to go out on game day and play as well as you can," said Collins, whose position coach was Jim Caldwell for two years followed by Dick Anderson. Caldwell is now in the same capacity with the Indianapolis Colts, coaching Peyton Manning. Anderson became the Lions' offensive line coach when Jay Paterno was named quarterbacks coach in 2000.
For Henne, going with Loeffler and Michigan turned out to be the correct path.
"Somebody the other day asked me, 'Would you have liked to see Chad at Penn State?' I would have loved it. We were PSU die-hards," Cantafio said. "But after it's said and done, if he went to Penn State he would have never played as a freshman. And as a freshman at Michigan he was an All-American, won the Big Ten and played in the Rose Bowl. So you have to say it's a pretty good choice."
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The perception is out there: If a recruit wants to be a Penn State quarterback, he likely won't play early and get the chance to show off his pro-style arm.
And even if he does, he won't likely to be placed into the spread-type offenses that have become popular around the nation at the high school and college levels.
That, however is a misconception to the one that made it.
"I don't think it's the nature of the offense," Collins said. "Coming out of high school I didn't throw the ball a lot. And it [the Penn State offense] was basically less of a pro-style offense is than it is now, almost. That's the way it looks to me."
NFL success "comes down to if you have the ability to read defenses and the ability to learn new offenses at the next level," Collins said.
Sometimes, things work out. In 2005, the Lions' offensive scheme adapted to Robinson's style and he guided the team to the BCS Orange Bowl. Robinson is in the NFL now, but as a reserve running back with the San Francisco 49ers.
Sometimes, a quarterback has to fall into the right situation.
"Ultimately, it comes down to whether everything lines up for you," Collins said. "I was on a great team and was able to have success with a team that went all the way to an undefeated season. At the end of the day, if you got the ability to play the next level you're going to play."
But outsiders believe that doing so is hindered by a Penn State offensive philosophy that is stuck in the past.
"You have to go with what's conducive and I don't know if they're doing that," Reitz said.
Whether or not that belief is correct is up for debate. But it doesn't really matter.
Outside thoughts are the ones that college coaches have to sway in their favor when recruiting. And it's also those beliefs that result in outside decisions, like should we draft a Penn State quarterback?
"Every school has their reputation," Cantafio said. "Penn State's reputation is not quarterbacks. Linebackers? Yes."
