As a practical matter, the Bill O'Brien Era may have begun last weekend.

Seven recruits were visiting Penn State.

By early last week, all seven, including a few previously undecideds, were verbal commitments.

All this while O'Brien was in Massachusetts, getting ready for last Sunday's AFC championship game.

Via Skype, the video/telephone service, O'Brien spoke to all seven of them, face-to-face, or at least screen-to-screen.

"He was sitting there talking to all of us," Worcester, Mass., safety Jordan Lucas told 247 Sports, a recruiting website.

"It was pretty cool, because he had to get ready for the game on Sunday. We're excited for him."

The big picture here is Penn State's recruiting seems to be going pretty well, and here come the magic words, all things considered.

There are of course many things to consider: The Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal. The firing and then death of iconic coach Joe Paterno.

The fact that O'Brien, the Patriots' outgoing offensive coordinator, is starting his first head coaching job at any level while preparing for the Super Bowl.

"The sad thing is, they were gonna have a top 10 class, maybe top five, until the Sandusky thing blew up," Tom Lemming, a national recruiting expert for CBS Sports Network, said Saturday.

"They're not a top 30 class right now."

Of the national recruiting web sites, 247 Sports has the Lions' class ranked 35th, Scout.com 41st and Rivals.com 43rd.

Penn State has 19 verbal commitments. That's a medium-low number. Alabama's class, currently top-ranked, has 27 commits. Miami has a whopping 31.

Click here for a list of PSU's 19 verbal commitments

But Notre Dame has only 17, USC a mere 12.

More importantly, Penn State has no five-star players (on a scale to five). Depending on which guru you endorse, four or five future Lions are four-stars. Most of the rest are three-stars.

The latest player to commit to the Lions is defensive end Evan Schwan, from Central Dauphin High School.

It appears that all 19 are "hard verbals" heading into National Signing Day Wednesday.

"Everybody else seems pretty set that they're going to sign," Sean Fitz, 247 Sports' Penn State recruiting guru, said Friday.

"Everybody else" is a reference to Skyler Mornhinweg, a quarterback from Philadelphia and a former Penn State verbal, who committed to Florida last week.

Opinions on Mornhinweg, the son of Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, vary.

Lemming saw him at a national all-star game workout, and "he was better than I thought. Florida probably sees him as a team leader."

Mornhinweg is not generally seen as a pro-style QB, but as more of an athletic recruit. He played safety in high school, and there are those who believe that's where he'll end up in college.

"I get the feeling he wasn't the type of guy Penn State was looking for," said Fitz, who suspects his decommit was "more of a mutual thing."

Almost as soon as Penn State lost Mornhinweg, it got a commitment from Steven Bench, a pro-style QB from Cairo, Ga., who is barely on the national radar. His biggest offer other than Penn State was from Rice.

 "It's really important that they grab a big-time quarterback in 2013," Fitz said. "That'll be O'Brien's guy."

The best player in Penn State's 2012 class is probably Akeel Lynch, a running back from Buffalo, N.Y., who's that state's Gatorade Player of the Year.

Lynch has size (6-1, 205), speed (4.47 40) and took official visits to, among others, Oklahoma and Iowa. In theory, he'll be ready to step in around the time current tailback Silas Redd is ready to move on.

The wild card of the group might be Jesse James, a tight end from McKeesport who's already enrolled at Penn State.

James is nearly 6-8, 246 pounds. He also plays defensive end and was a heavyweight wrestler in high school.

He's generally ranked as a three-star prospect, but Lemming loves his upside, and ranks him as the No. 3 tight end in the country.

"He's very athletic, and has great potential to get bigger," Lemming said.

"He could grow into a left [offensive] tackle."

Of the new assistant coaches, Fitz said he believes wide receivers coach Stan Hixon, who's been at LSU and Georgia Tech, and running backs coach Charles London, late of Duke and the Tennessee Titans, could become star recruiters.

London landed Lynch and will be the new recruiting coordinator.

The real star, of course, will have to be O'Brien.

Lemming pointed out that Miami, Ohio State and USC are all coming off recent scandals and are right back near the top of the recruiting world.

Not coincidentally, the current coaches there, Al Golden at Miami, Urban Meyer at Ohio State and Lane Kiffin at USC, have no connection to the scandals.

"I think O'Brien was a really good choice, but you won't see it [in recruiting] until this time next year," Lemming said.

Contact Sunday News Assistant Sports Editor Mike Gross at mgross@lnpnews.com.