Linebacker flips commitment to Penn State on eve of signing day

Linebacker Kevin Givens will be sending in his National Letter of Intent today, as all high school football recruits will. But instead of sending it to Pitt as he’d planned for almost a year, Givens will now give his commitment to play for Penn State in the fall.

The Altoona native, who committed to Pitt last February, flipped his future play to Penn State head coach James Franklin to become a Nittany Lion National Letter of Intent Day is when every college football commit officially sends in his letter of intent to play at the university of their choice in the fall.

Givens was rated as a three-star recruit by sources including ESPN, Rivals and Scout. Recruiting website 247 ranked Givens as the No. 18 high school player in Pennsylvania.

Though he was committed to Pitt at the time, the 6-foot-2, 245-pound linebacker made an unofficial visit to Penn State in November. He also held offers from Temple, Massachusetts and Western Michigan.

With Givens now joining tight end Nick Bowers as former Panther commits to flip to Penn State, Pitt is now projected to have 15 recruits for the upcoming season, a coach can offer a maximum of 25 spots each year.

Narduzzi recently poached a player of his own from the University of Pennsylvania, when quarterback Ben DiNucci decommitted from Penn to become Narduzzi’s first quarterback recruit at Pitt. DiNucci was the third-leading passer in WPIAL history with 7,619 career passing yards.

For now, all of these recruits have only verbally committed to their respective schools. Though many recruits — including Ohio linebacker Anthony McKee, who is committed to Pitt — have recently tweeted out reaffirmations to their schools, nothing will be official until players send their National Letters of Intent to coaches on Wednesday.