Scouting Penn State 5-Star Commit DL Dani Dennis-Sutton

On Thursday, James Franklin Punctuated This Endless Summer Recruiting Revival by Warding Off a Couple SEC Heavyweights and Landing the Crown Jewel of the 2022 Class   

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Promise we’ll get to the clips soon enough – because, let’s face it, we know you clicked on this to WATCH not READ – but spare a few paragraphs for us to put McDonogh High (Md.) DL Dani Dennis-Sutton’s verbal commitment to Penn State in the proper context…because it’s a pretty big deal. 

Ranked as the No. 11 overall prospect in the country by Rivals.com, DDS (assuming he stays true to his word when it’s time to sign in December) becomes the first defensive line recruit ranked among the Top 100 overall high school players to choose Penn State since James Franklin took the job nearly a decade ago. Granted, a couple of guys have been close: Shane Simmons (104), PJ Mustipher (107), and Jayson Oweh (140), for example. So it hasn’t been a complete talent desert along the defensive line, but, technically, DDS will be the first Penn State prep prospect to crack the century mark. 

OK, that’s cool but so what?

Well, for as much as rabid college fanbases obsess about the somewhat-factual notion that transcendent quarterback play remains the surest path to success, the true correlation amongst teams that play in the CFP and win national championships could very well be the stockpile of elite talent along the DL chasing those quarterbacks.

History shows you can win a national title with third-string Cardale Jones. You can win a national title with current Mobile, Alabama insurance salesman Jake Coker. But, it’s nearly impossible to hold up hardware through a shower of confetti if you can’t apply pressure on those aforementioned has-beens and stir up havoc along the line with freakishly quick and powerful big fellas…you know, dudes like Dani Dennis-Sutton.  

From 2014-2019, 28 of the 34 starting defensive linemen who played in the CFP National Championship Game were eventually drafted by the NFL. Since 2014, only 5 defensive linemen recruited by James Franklin – Shareef Miller, Yetur Gross-Matos, Robert Windsor, Oweh, and Shaka Toney — have been drafted by the NFL. 

From the inception of the CFP, 15 of the 23 starting defensive linemen on national championship squads were Top 100 overall high school recruits before coming to college. And, as we stated earlier, DDS will be the first Top 100 d-lineman recruited to Penn State in the post-Paterno Era. 

To find out why recruiting services think so highly of DDS, we watched two full games from his 2019 sophomore season (COVID shut down Maryland high school football last academic calendar) vs. 9-3 Calvert Hall and sub-.500 Catholic High from Virginia, and then supplemented that content with a few video crumbs from DDS’ Hudl highlight reel. 

Physically, he just stands out from the crowd — a teenage kid that already passes for a grown-ass man, even when he’s standing next to older McDonogh teammates and D-1 caliber athletes like 2-Curtis Jacobs (Penn State football), 55-Kwan Williams (Boston College football), and 25-Jackson Bonitz (Navy lacrosse). Heck, we didn’t bother to place an arrow on DDS in these clips because it’s so dang obvious which player he is even Louis Braille could spot him.  

So, 6-foot-5, 250 pounds. That’s sounds a lot like Jayson Oweh, doesn’t it? 

Ehhhh, yes and no. While both players measure the same and are blessed with attributes like an unnaturally beneficial wingspan, DDS isn’t quite the outlier athlete Oweh is/was, and Oweh was never the violent bully/Wreck-It Ralph defender at Penn State that DDS has already developed into as a high schooler. 

Quite frankly, some of these DDS clips (see below, No. 33 in all plays) are absolutely freakin’ cartoonish, like when adults in mascot costumes bulldoze Pop Warner children for entertainment during NFL halftimes. 

Much like our evaluation of PA RB Nicholas Singleton a few weeks ago, projecting how quickly DDS will adapt to Penn State DC Brent Pry’s 4-3 scheme is a tad tricky because McDonogh runs a base 3-4 defense and ‘amoebas’ into a 2-4-5 look on passing downs. Therefore, we didn’t really see a ton of examples of DDS pass rushing one-on-one on the edge against offensive tackles. Footage does exist of DDS participating in those summer workout showcases put on by recruiting services, and we’ll gladly include clips from those events in our evaluations once the NCAA does away with pads and helmets. Until then, we’re sticking to actual football.

As far as technique, DDS occasionally flashes decent use of his hands (like on this rip move shown below) but definitely hasn’t cultivated a diverse portfolio of pass rush moves because at this level he’s never been forced to do so. 

At this stage of his football development – a progression that was undoubtedly stunted in some capacity because of the lost 2020 COVID season – DDS is an absolute terror on the field, but he’s nowhere close to being a technician. He’s REAL big. He’s got a lot of physical traits you can’t coach. But he’s still RAW. Most of the time – like you’ll see here in this montage vs. Catholic High and their outclassed left guard – DDS just simply overwhelms the person assigned to block him. 

On a positive note, DDS plays to his strength (literally) and doesn’t get cute when it comes to embracing contact and shedding blockers. Against Calvert Hall (the better of the two opponents we scouted) DDS was too fast for pulling linemen and too strong for fullbacks on power runs. Instead of ducking around or sidestepping the blocker in the backfield, DDS meets the fullback head-on, wins at the point of contact, and frees himself to make the play. 

Beyond just being bigger and better than every kid on the field, DDS’s Football IQ is also incredibly advanced for his age as we found multiple examples of him diagnosing (and blowing up) screens, not panicking when asked to drop in coverage, and cluttering up throwing lanes and batting balls at the line of scrimmage against quick-passing attacks. 

When he wants to, DDS can be explosive off the ball. Case in point:

And when he wants to, DDS (despite being the tallest dude on the field) can play with leverage, get under an offensive lineman’s pads and tilt him back on his heels. Case in point v. 2.0:

The problem is DDS doesn’t always want to do those things. Too often on film DDS doesn’t fully engage at the snap but rather putters for a few uninspired steps while uncoiling his large frame so he can survey what’s happening in the backfield and freelance in hopes of making the play. Many times he gets away with it. Other times, especially against above-average high school offensive linemen, DDS gets driven out of his gap when his foot isn’t on the gas.

Here vs. Calvert Hall, the left tackle and pulling right guard rudely usher DDS out of the way for a big gain on the first play while a double team subdues him and makes the 5-star a non-factor on the second play.

Finally, if DDS plans to see early reps at 4-3 DE as a true freshman in 2022, then Penn State S&C wizard Dwight Galt needs to work some magic not necessarily in the weight room but rather the yoga studio because we have real questions about DDS’ flexibility/pliability/general bendability (if that’s a word).  For an elite defensive prospect, DDS’ tackling was too often “comfortable being great.” Except it wasn’t great. It was bad. First play of this upcoming clip montage was a 4th and 1 that should have been a turnover on downs if DDS could have punctuated his fantastic initial penetration with a seemingly makeable tackle. Instead, he inexplicably doesn’t even place a finger on the RB.