It has been less than a week since John Pennington was named the permanent head coach of the West Virginia State football program after serving as interim coach since December. On Wednesday, the Yellow Jackets will announce their next batch of future players on National Signing Day.
It will be an exciting day for Pennington and his still-growing coaching staff as he pieces together the rest of that group for the 2017 season. It also caps an eventful couple of months where he and the coaches that remained from last year's staff had to hit the road to sell prospective recruits on a program with an uncertain future at the time - and get them to choose the school because they truly wanted to be at the school and were behind what the program was hoping to do.
"It's easy to sell yourself and something that you really believe in," Pennington said. "When we had our recruiting weekends, people saw our university and saw my passion and what we wanted to do here at West Virginia State, and that's why we were able to get guys to commit to being here before it was official.
"And the fact that they committed to the school was even better because they're going to be rock-solid and want to be here. The goal was to get them on campus, and if they want to be here, that's the kind of young man we want."
Both West Virginia State and the University of Charleston will procure their 2017 signing classes Wednesday, as the two teams begin their attempt to rebound from disappointing seasons. UC followed its first NCAA Division II playoff appearance in 2015 with a 3-8 finish in 2016. WVSU went from five wins in 2015, the most in a season since 2008, to a 3-8 record in Jon Anderson's final campaign as Yellow Jackets head coach.
When the dust settled after Anderson left for the University of Sioux Falls with the majority of the staff following him, three coaches remained on the WVSU staff with Pennington - defensive line coach James Groce, assistant defensive backs coach John Ashworth and graduate assistant Ricardo Figueroa.
Together, those four hit the road, looking to finalize a group of players they thought would come in and want to represent West Virginia State.
"I told those young guys, 'You wear shirts and ties and look like you're 30,' " Pennington said, laughing. "We needed to make sure they knew we meant business.
"Those guys were all incredible. We found out [Pennington was hired] on a Monday when we were on the road, drove back on Tuesday and had a meeting with the team and I grabbed those three guys and I said, 'Get back out on the road.' We found the guys who wanted to be here. The guys we have are all-in."
Since he's been introduced, Pennington has added Quincy Wilson to the coaching staff as the school's running backs coach and is expected to be bringing in a few more assistants in the coming days to help grow the program even more and build on what they were able to do on the recruiting trail down the stretch prior to Wednesday's signing day.
Recruiting West Virginia was an immediate focus for Pennington as he took over, saying he wanted to bring in players from all over the state to bring the mentality that they believe is necessary to be able to bring a winning attitude to the program.
"We're going to start here locally," Pennington said. "I'm a West Virginia kid and we want to bring in West Virginians to be the core and the toughness and depth of our program. The blue-collar mentality that all West Virginians have is going to be the culture of our team."
Pennington understands that National Signing Day is just the first step to building that type of program that he hopes to build. One of the things Pennington learned from former West Virginia University coach Rich Rodriguez when he played for him at WVU was that recruiting never ends. It's a process that lasts all year and is vital to keep that going as State heads closer to the start of the season.
"This is just when it starts," Pennington said. "You recruit year-round and we're just getting started with it. I know when I bring in coaches, they'll have guys that they want and have been recruiting.
"Up to this point, our goal has been to get the guys that we love and that we really want to be here for four years because we think they're a great fit."
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.