celebrating our seniors

You're fairly close, except I believe Thayer Hall is from South Carolina.

I would like to add that this whole notion of our coaches "failing" to land someone is, in my opinion, seriously off the mark.  Let's look at Brother Bob's arguments about the recruiting "failures" of Coach Rose and his staff.

Brother Bob has stated that because the coaching staff did not land highly-ranked classes in 2015, 2016 and 2017, they "failed."  Brother Bob apparently pays no mind to the fact that there are limited scholarships to give, nor does he seemingly pay any attention to the fact that for the 2015 and 2016 classes, the coaches of other teams were certainly whispering in the ears of highly-recruited prospects that they would spend their first one or two years at Penn State sitting on the bench, behind players from Penn State's 2014 class.  Could Penn State have landed highly-rated recruits in those years despite those obstacles?  Theoretically, yes.  But the players have to want to come to Penn State, and Coach Rose and staff have to believe the players will be a good fit at Penn State.  More talent doesn't always equal a better team.  Look at the 2007 Nebraska squad -- which returned most everyone from the Husker's 2006 NCAA Championship squad, plus got back a former 1st Team All American who had been injured.  Guess what -- they didn't repeat.  And Texas has one NCAA Championship in the past 25 years or so.  That's what all their talent has done for them.  So maybe the high-quality players who Penn State might have taken, simply weren't good fits for Penn State.  Coach Rose often says he doesn't want players to come to Penn State because Penn State is the best, he wants them to come to Penn State because they want to be the best.

Brother Bob also apparently doesn't take into consideration that for several years other teams have probably told recruits that Coach Rose would be retiring soon (ignoring the fact that they themselves might very well be fired, or leave for supposedly greener pastures at another school). That probably worked with some recruits -- maybe key recruits.  And it probably took some time for Coach Rose and his staff to recognize and react to those kinds of tactics. It looks like they have done that now -- just look to the 2018 squad.

There's also the argument that Coach Rose likes the "Big Class" model.  This is the third time since 2010 that he's brought in a monster class -- both in quality and quantity -- the 2010 Class featured seven highly-ranked recruits; the 2014 Class featured six highly-ranked recruits; and the 2018 class features seven highly-ranked recruits (including PrepVolleyball.com Defensive Dandy Brooklyn Hill) .  That model has yielded three National Championships in seven years, with the possibility of a fourth National Championship this season.  Not bad.  

Brother Bob points to programs like Nebraska, and Texas and Stanford as "successful" programs that "always" land highly-ranked classes, but in doing so, he conveniently overlooks that from 2006 through 2016, those three schools won a total of four National Championships, compared to the six national championships won by Penn State during that period.  He also overlooks the possibility that the "Big Class" model limits the opportunities for bringing in highly-ranked, but smaller, classes every year.

Brother Bob appears to think that Penn State could have garnered highly-ranked recruits despite those obstacles if only they had not "failed" by committing "too completely" (or words to this effect) to the 2014 class, by which, I assume, Brother Bob believes one or more players from that class should have been pressured by the staff to leave the team.   

I just don't think that is Coach Rose's way, nor should it be, in my opinion.  A separate issue is whether any 2014 class member should have been pressured to leave.  Putting aside for a moment that I don't think players should ever be "run off," I don't think any player in the 2014 class merited that even if one believed it is OK to run players off.  They all have performed well -- even, I would argue, Nia Reed, whose injury undoubtedly set her back, and who appears finally to be "ready."  But for the record, I don't think that Coach Rose should go there, and start running players off.    

Although players do transfer from Penn State, my belief is that Coach Rose has always taken the position that if a recruit isn't good enough for Penn State, that's his fault as an assessor of talent, not the recruit's fault.  So I don't believe he pressures players to leave the program.  Just look at the recent cases of Wilma Rivera and Jelena Novakovic.  Both came in as part of the 2015 class.  Neither contributed in a significant way in matches, even though they were both in positions of need for Penn State in 2015 and 2016.  If Coach Rose had just wanted to free up scholarships so that he could bring in a transfer, he clearly could have pressured them to leave.  It's obvious he didn't -- they were both here in 2016.  In any case, it looks like Penn State made two recruiting mistakes, which compounded some of the other challenges facing Coach Rose and his staff.  But the players stayed with the team for two years, after which they were able to transfer to two excellent schools, where they are thriving.  They were good fits at those schools.  Just not at Penn State's program.  

I do not suggest that the staff hasn't "failed" at times to accomplish things they wanted to accomplish. For example, I am confident they would have liked to have Thayer Hall pick Penn State. But again, as gnu2vball pointed out, Thayer Hall had a say in that choice, and there may have been nothing Coach Rose and staff could have said or done to change her mind. More important, in my mind, is that they followed that supposed "failure" with a spectacular series of successes for the 2018 Class. 

What I fail to understand is the constant drumbeat of criticism by Brother Bob of a wildly successful coach and program.  No one is immune from criticism, but Brother Bob's narrative is, for me at least, getting old.  So all this is a very long-winded way of saying -- specifically to Brother Bob, but also generally, that I think we ought to put the "recruiting" failures narrative to bed.  To be clear -- no one will be banned for continuing the discussion, or saying (politely, one would hope) that they think I am full of it and hopelessly naïve.  Perhaps I am.   FWIW, no one has ever been banned from this site, and certainly would not be for criticizing my positions on anything.  But I think Brother Bob is beating the issue to death.