As one in a long line of bruising running backs at Central Bucks West High School, Randy Cuthbert thought he'd carry over the mentality to Penn State.
But Joe Paterno had different ideas, thinking Cuthbert might make a more effective receiver.
Set on playing in the backfield, Cuthbert decided to leave Pennsylvania to be coached by Steve Spurrier during his short tenure at Duke.
"He wasn't the typical tough-guy head coach like you saw with the other schools," said Cuthbert, now the coach at Pennridge High School in Perkasie. "I really liked the offense he ran, doing different things, letting the running backs run and catch a bunch of balls."
According to Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Mike Farrell, Penn State partly failed recruiting rule No. 1 in that instance more than 20 years ago.
"The first rule of recruiting is to take care of your backyard first and then branch out," Farrell said.
But Penn State is doing just that so far in 2010, securing commitments from six of the top 10 recruits in Rivals' preseason Pennsylvania rankings -- including blue chip quarterback Paul Jones of McKees Rocks.
Four of the six come from the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League, an area Pittsburgh coach Dave Wannstedt has stated he wants to fence off from competitors.
"Any time you make a wall comment, it comes back and bites you," Farrell said. "[Rutgers coach] Greg Schiano said the same thing in New Jersey."
While the Panthers have had success recruiting Western Pennsylvania, a big chunk of the area's highly regarded prospects have headed to Penn State -- see Justin King and Anthony Morelli -- or Ohio State -- see Terrelle Pryor and Dorian Bell.
But in its backyard, Penn State has fewer top prospects to choose from than schools around top-tier recruiting hotbeds Florida, California and Texas.
Bob Lichtenfels, Scout.com's recruiting manager for the North, said the amount of Division I recruits in Pennsylvania has actually increased in recent years, but it doesn't mean the overall talent level has risen.
With that, Penn State isn't able to focus solely on Pennsylvania and has instead made a living picking the Washington D.C. area clean.
"Well, just because there's a high number of kids [in Pennsylvania] doesn't mean they're at the level they want," Lichtenfels said. "If you have 100 girlfriends, it doesn't mean they're all hot. Eight may be hot and the others may be companions.
"Penn State's got enough of a national background and can go to Maryland and get seven or eight of the best players."
On the opposite end of the spectrum is lowly Temple. Sitting in the middle of a basketball city, it's a hoops school that's been booted from the Big East, ended up in the MAC and hasn't gone to a bowl since the 1979 Garden State Bowl.
With such little historical success, Temple has used several different plans in an attempt to build the program.
"Yeah, you look at [former Owls coach] Bobby Wallace, who tried to build around JUCO kids and failed miserably," Lichtenfels said.
In three-plus years under former Penn State linebackers coach Al Golden, the Owls have gone 10-27 but have improved their win total each season.
And part of the improvement is getting away from the Wallace philosophy and once again focusing on high school players.
"Their staff has done a good job of trying to make inroads at local schools," Cuthbert said. "Changing leagues was a great move for them. I see them being competitive and making moves. That wasn't always an easy sell for suburban football kids."
But high expectations going into the season with fans hoping for Temple's first bowl bid in 30 years were quickly tempered in a Sept. 3 loss to Villanova.
Even so, Woodland Hills High School coach George Novak believes Temple's MAC participation helps it attract the mid-level recruits schools like Penn State pass on.
"Now that they're in the MAC, they're on par with those other MAC schools recruiting this area from Ohio," Novak said. "They're definitely a program to be considered now that they've got some new life, but they haven't really recruited this area as hard as some of the other coaches that were at Temple."
Out of the three Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh boasts the highest percentage of in-state players on its roster at 66 percent. However, the Panthers don't get the exposure of recruiting competitors like Penn State and Ohio State.
"At Ohio State last Saturday against USC, you have 106,000 people there and they're on national TV. Even though they lost, it's still great for the program," Lichtenfels said. "At Pitt, you have maybe 30 or 40,000 people tops and all of those yellow seats. Kids see that."
Although the Panthers have yet to get over the hump in the Big East under Dave Wannstedt, Novak believes local prospects hold the Pittsburgh program in a high regard, and their college decisions rely on many areas in addition to football.
"When you live in the WPIAL area in this part of the state, kids either like Pitt or some of them like to go away from home," Novak said. "It's an individualized thing. A lot of kids like to stay home so the parents can watch at least half of their games and travel. These kids are 17 or 18 years old and they could visit and if they meet a nice girl at like the frat party they go to, all those factors come into play."
In the past three seasons, the top recruit in Pennsylvania according to Rivals has fled out-of-state.
Pryor and Corey Brown of the WPIAL chose Ohio State in 2008 and 2009, respectively, while Derrick Morgan picked Georgia Tech in 2007.
And although Penn State has swept through New York since the fall of Syracuse and the state of Maryland while the Terrapins have been down, Farrell believes the class of 2010 could be Penn State's chance to reclaim dominance in the Keystone State.
"This year maybe more than ever they're trying to go back and recruit in-state kids," Farrell said.
"This is a deep year in Pennsylvania, and they need to be able to pull in those kids."
