The NCAA’s early signing period began Wednesday, which means high school seniors across the nation can sign letters of intent and make their commitments to college football programs official.
In the Philadelphia area, a number of talented recruits in the class of 2026 are heading to FBS programs.
Eight players from the Philly area plan to join coach Fran Brown in Syracuse, while Temple coach K.C. Keeler landed nine local signees in his first full recruiting year. Amid uncertainty at Penn State, which has yet to name its next head coach, it had just two signees — and lost a four-star commitment from Coatesville linebacker Terry Wiggins.
Here’s more about where the area’s prospects are heading:
Top prospects
La Salle College High School’s Joey O’Brien, a two-way star at wide receiver and cornerback, is the No. 1 player in Pennsylvania, according to 247Sports. He signed his letter of intent to Notre Dame after his commitment in June.
The five-star pledge plans to play both positions for the Fighting Irish, and he’ll have a familiar face joining him next year in South Bend, Ind. His teammate, Grayson McKeogh, a 6-foot-8 left tackle, also made his commitment official after announcing his pledge on the same day as O’Brien.
McKeogh, who began playing offensive tackle just last season, is considered among the best in the nation at his position in the class of 2026.
Explorers quarterback Gavin Sidwar signed with Missouri, a school he’s been committed to since April, and tight end/linebacker John-Patrick Oates decided Wednesday to flip his pledge from James Madison to James Franklin’s Virginia Tech.
This is cool. His dad (without knowing each other) sent me a video of him throwing when he was 10 and asked for advice. I said “just let him be he’s super talented”—congrats @Gavin7Sidwarhttps://t.co/9vnxrYHa04
St. Joseph’s Prep’s Alex Haskell, a 6-4 defensive tackle, initially planned to play for the Nittany Lions, but the coaching change — and “uncertainty surrounding the program,” he wrote on X — led Haskell to withdraw his pledge.
On Oct. 22, a day after reopening his recruitment, Haskell, who’s ranked No. 10 among all players in the state, announced his commitment to Syracuse. The four-star recruit is one of the top signees in the Orange’s 2026 class.
On Wednesday, Malvern Prep edge rusher Jackson Ford, who’s ranked No. 8 in the state, became the one of the two signees for the Nittany Lions during the early period.
4⭐️ Malvern (PA) DE Jackson Ford has signed with Penn State. He will likely be the only 2026 recruit to do so in the early signing period.
The biggest twist came when Wiggins, ranked No. 4 in the state, flipped his commitment from Penn State to sign with Virginia Tech.
The 6-3, 210-pound linebacker made his pledge to Penn State in May, but told 247Sports on Wednesday that “me and Coach Franklin built a very strong relationship.” He added that when he visited the Hokies, “it felt like Penn State 2.0.”
Other FBS signees
Imhotep Charter offensive tackle Jesse Moody to Maryland
Neumann Goretti tight end/defensive end Carter Bashir to Syracuse
Kennett Square kicker Shay Barker to Syracuse
Burlington Township linebacker Gemaus Sackie to Syracuse
Camden offensive lineman Jojo White to Syracuse
Camden safety Ibn Muhammad to Syracuse
Chester offensive tackle Shemaj Henry to Syracuse
Haverford School defensive tackle Walt Frazier to Syracuse
Chester safety Daron Harris to Temple
Roman Catholic receiver/defensive back Eyan Stead Jr. to Temple
Roman Catholic receiver Ash Roberts to Temple
Roman Catholic quarterback Semaj Beals to Akron
Lower Merion tackle/defensive tackle Kechan Miller to Temple
Salem defensive end/tight end Antwuan Rogers to Temple
Bonner-Prendergast receiver/defensive back Dylan Abram to Temple
Bonner-Prendie defensive lineman Chibuzo Amobi to UMass
Pennsauken running back Randall Blount Jr. to Temple
Upper Moreland punter Luke Sword to Temple
Penn Charter tight end Tom McGlinchey to Northwestern
Malvern Prep linebacker Max Mohring to Northwestern
Malvern Prep running back Ezekiel Bates to Minnesota
Winslow Township receiver Quayd Hendryx to Minnesota
Winslow running back Nakeem Powell to Delaware
Winslow receiver Nyqir Helton to North Carolina
Winslow cornerback Julian Peterson to North Carolina
Timber Creek offensive tackle Roseby Lubintus to Virginia Tech
Glassboro defensive lineman Brandon Simmons Jr. to Eastern Michigan
Springside Chestnut Hill receiver Aaron Clark to Buffalo
St. Joe’s Prep cornerback Simaj Hill to West Virginia
West Chester East offensive tackle Tyler Duell to Rutgers
Germantown Academy quarterback Xavier Stearn to Rutgers
Roman Catholic coach Rick Prete said it best: Every team in the state playoffs is good, and this is what each program has prepared all year for. What they’re playing for is different.
For the Cahillites, it’s getting back to the state final after making their first appearance in school history last season, when Roman Catholic fell in overtime to Harrisburg’s Bishop McDevitt for the PIAA Class 5A crown at Cumberland Valley High School.
The heartbreaker has been Roman Catholic’s fuel all season, and this time Prete believes his team is “in a good place” to reach the final.
The Cahillites (8-3) handed La Salle College High its first loss of the season, nearly beat St. Joseph’s Prep (in a 40-39 double overtime loss), and are riding a four-game winning streak entering a matchup against Whitehall of District 11 in the first round of the PIAA playoffs on Friday night.
“We’re the only team that can get in our own way,” said Prete, who has been at the helm since 2019. “We have to stay focused and get better every day. … From the beginning of the year to now, it’s been about staying out of our way and understanding that if we play our best, we’re the best team in Pennsylvania.”
Roman Catholic is led by Akron-bound quarterback Semaj Beals, who has passed for 2,456 yards this season. His main targets have been Ashdan Roberts (12 touchdowns) and Eyan Stead Jr. (eight), who both recently committed to Temple.
Prete also credited center/guard Dom Ramos and defensive end Julian Enoch as the team’s vocal leaders. The two seniors “lead by example and try to hold guys accountable,” Prete said.
“We tell them to be where their feet are,” he said. “We’re not focused on coming off of four wins. We’re coming off of a loss in the state title game. We’re coming off a loss in essentially the PCL championship game. … Roman has been coming back from a loss. That’s been our mindset.”
Pennridge eyes history
Pennridge High has never won a district or state championship. The Rams (11-1) are having their best season under third-year coach Kyle Beller after going 3-7 in 2023 and 4-7 in 2024. They opened the season on a seven-game winning streak, with victories against conference foes North Penn and Neshaminy.
District 1 Class 6A includes top competition. Pennridge, which earned a Suburban One League title outright and was seeded No. 1 in districts, barely got past No. 16 Plymouth-Whitemarsh to open the district playoffs, 22-21.
Pennridge celebrates its victory over Neshaminy on Oct. 3.
“Plymouth-Whitemarsh is a very good program,” Beller said. “We’re talking about the 16th seed and their record is 7-3 — that’s a pretty darn good football team. When you’re looking at that top to bottom there, we knew we had our work cut out for us.
“We have three of the four teams left in District 1 right now, playing for the district championship. That’s how good the conference is [Suburban One National]. It’s the best conference in this side of the state and one of the best in the state.”
Pennridge has found ways to win — against schools it hasn’t beaten in some time. Beller has been building the program for this moment. Pennridge is one win away from a district final appearance, but first must take down Coatesville in the District 1 semifinal on Friday night.
“It’s about consistency,” Beller said. “We’ve had that for three years.”
Following in his footsteps
Cardinal O’Hara coach Michael Ewing reminded his team to stay level-headed entering its matchup with Bonner Prendergast in the Class 4A Catholic League final last Saturday.
“They’re our school’s biggest rival,” said Ewing, in his fourth season at the helm. “Any time we play them in any sport, both schools’ student sections, the alumni, everybody shows out. It’s a great atmosphere.”
The Lions (8-4) silenced the defending 4A state champions, 24-3, marking the first time that O’Hara has beaten Bonner in nine years. O’Hara will face West Philadelphia at the Northeast Supersite on Saturday in the District 12 championship with the chance — at least to Ewing’s knowledge — to win the program’s first district title.
There’s also a unique opportunity for Ewing, who is the grandson of Bob Ewing, the winningest coach at O’Hara and a hall of famer. Michael recalled when his late grandfather won a city title at Veterans Stadium in 1979.
Saturday is his chance to earn the team a city title, following in his grandfather’s footsteps, and he hopes “to do something that he was never able to do” in the state playoffs — win the school’s first PIAA crown.
“My dad coached on his staff as well,” Michael Ewing said. “I grew up at O’Hara — for the first nine years of my life I was on the sidelines, in the locker room, and the coaches’ rooms. They didn’t do the daycare thing back then. …
“The school has a special place in my heart. That’s why I came back to it. That’s why I wanted to try and bring them back to where they once were.”
Here’s a look at the full schedule of the local teams competing in the first round of the PIAA playoffs:
PIAA Class 1A
Belmont Charter at York Catholic, York County, on Saturday (1 p.m.).
PIAA Class 2A
Lansdale Catholic vs. Lakeland, Lackawanna County, at Germantown Supersite on Saturday (1 p.m.).
PIAA Class 3A
Neumann Goretti will play in the quarterfinals next weekend against the winner of Berks Catholic and Trinity High School. Time and location to be determined.
PIAA Class 4A
North Pocono, Lackawanna County, at Bishop Shanahan on Friday (7 p.m.).
Cardinal O’Haravs. West Philadelphia at the Northeast Supersite on Saturday (11 a.m.) for the District 12 title.
PIAA Class 5A
Roman Catholic at Whitehall on Friday (7 p.m.).
Strath Haven at Springfield (Delco) on Friday (7 p.m.).
West Chester Rustin at Chester on Saturday (1 p.m.).
PIAA Class 6A
La Salle vs. Imhotep at Northeast High on Saturday (3 p.m.) in the District 12 championship.
Shay Barker wouldn’t describe his relationship with his older brother Ryan as instant best friends. They fought as children and were competitive with each other, but Shay secretly wanted to do whatever his big brother was doing.
“I was kind of like a crybaby as a kid, and he was the one who just found that super annoying,” said Shay, three years younger than Ryan. “We would get in a lot of fights and stuff. But I’m a lot more mature now. I don’t really get upset about things. I think that’s probably the biggest reason why we’re so close now: We connect on a different level than we used to.”
Part of their connection also stems from the bond that the two Chester County natives share in the same sport.
Ryan is the starting kicker at Penn State. The redshirt sophomore, once a preferred walk-on, is now on scholarship. Shay, a senior at Kennett High School, will also head to a high-major program to kick and punt next fall. He earned a scholarship offer to Syracuse and made his pledge in June.
Ryan is considered one of the best to come through Kennett’s program. He holds the school record for longest field goal (45 yards) and was the first in program history to play Division I football. With the Nittany Lions this season, Ryan’s longest field goal is 49 yards, and he ranks eighth on Penn State’s all-time list in extra-point percentage (98.6%), while carrying the top percentage (86.7%) in field goals made in program history.
Shay felt he had high expectations to live up to. He has been compared to Ryan before. But Shay brushed those comments to the side because the only way to silence those remarks is on the gridiron.
The 6-foot-2, 190-pounder is ranked among the top 10 high school kickers in the country, according to 247Sports. He has kicked field goals as far as 63 yards in practice, and his in-game career-long is 44 yards. So far, Shay has made 8 of 10 field goal attempts for a 7-2 Kennett team.
“Kicking has brought us closer than I ever thought we would be,” Ryan Barker said. “It’s such an individualized thing that we’re both trying to work just as hard as each other to get better at whatever we need to improve on, and to be able to have each other there for the mental and physical aspect, it’s just awesome. I love helping him. I love coaching him, and I can see that he’s listening.”
Soccer turned football
The Barkers grew up in a soccer family.
Their mother, Sally, used to visit her parents’ native England during the holidays. In the early days of their relationship, her future husband came along. The two decided to go to a championship match a tier below the Premier League, and “my jaw hit the floor,” Chris Barker said.
From the atmosphere to the game itself, Barker was hooked and became a supporter of Manchester United. The Barkers even named Ryan after Ryan Giggs, one of the most decorated footballers of all time, who spent the majority of his career with United.
And it didn’t take long for Ryan Barker to pick up the sport.
Shay, Sally, Ryan, and Chris Barker together on the field at Penn State.
“We have video of Ryan barely walking but kicking a soccer ball,” his father said. “Ryan went on to achieve a lot of success in soccer. We thought that was going to be the pathway. We thought that soccer would be their ticket to maybe a scholarship in college. But little did we know that there’s an influx of Europeans now in the American collegiate soccer system, and it became pretty clear early on that it was going to be a lot more competitive for our boys to earn a scholarship, let alone play at a high level.”
Both brothers started soccer around age 3. They played for the Delaware Rush Football Club in Hockessin and the Southern Chester County Soccer Association in Kennett Square. However, before Ryan entered high school, he sat on the idea of kicking in football.
One day in the summer, he asked his father to drop him off at Kennett’s football field. He brought a football and tried to kick a field goal. After each attempt, he would jog over to the ball to do it again. A custodian at the school saw Ryan and went to find coach Lance Frazier to tell him, “‘There’s a freshman on the field kicking 50-yard field goals,’” Frazier recalled.
“I’m like, ‘Get out of here, that’s not possible,’” said Frazier, in his eighth season as Kennett’s head coach. “I go up there and I see this tall, slender kid. I can hear him before I can see him, because he’s kicking the [stuff] out of the ball. … I knew he was going to have to make a really big decision here in the future: Is he a soccer player or is he a football player?”
Through three years, Ryan played on Kennett’s soccer team and kicked for the football team. In his senior year, he decided to put his full commitment into kicking. He had some interest from smaller soccer programs to play collegiately, but he wanted to go Division I.
Football could give him that opportunity.
“That was probably one of the most difficult decisions that I ever had to make for myself,” Ryan said. “Just in terms of soccer being my first love and playing it for 17 years. … When I realized I could potentially play Division I football, that was kind of the main factor in my decision.”
Kennett’s Shay Barker kicked his longest field goal of 41 yards last season.
Shay’s journey was a bit different. He started to fall out of love with soccer in the eighth grade. Due in part to a growth spurt, Shay had patellar tendinitis in his knees, which made it painful to run. He decided to try kicking as a freshman while learning alongside his brother, then a senior.
“He had seen how fun it was for his brother to play on Friday nights and to be part of the football team at school,” their mother said. “I think he was really excited to join [Ryan] and kind of be his understudy.”
Kicking came naturally to Shay, but he was uncertain what he wanted from the sport. Then, something changed.
Carving his own path
During his junior year, Shay competed in a few camps and showcases through Kohl’s Kicking, a program for athletes who play specialized positions of kicker, punter, and long snapper to gain exposure to college coaches. He had a rough showing during the January showcase, which led him to question whether this was what he wanted to do.
“Growing up, Shay always wanted to go to hang out with his friends,” his mother said. “He wanted to play this sport, this club. Last winter, he said, ‘I think I’m going to try to play basketball my senior year.’ [Chris and I] would look at each other like, ‘What is he talking about?’ He just could not say no. … The biggest question mark was maybe not whether he could do it, but whether he would choose to do it because of the sacrifice.”
Shay and Ryan Barker shown together while they played at Kennett High School.
That performance fueled his desire to get better.
Shay began seeing a personal trainer to get stronger and sought out advice from Ryan, who reminds his younger brother that “the only kick that matters is the next one.”
In June, Shay attended a camp at Syracuse, where he won the field goal competition and backed up to about 58 yards. He also was a finalist in the kickoff competition.
A few days later, Syracuse came calling to offer Shay a full ride.
“They saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself,” Shay said. “I was kind of an underdog a lot of my career. I just got in the right mental space and did what I needed to do. … I’m honored to have this opportunity, especially coming from a small school like Kennett, where not many kids get these kinds of opportunities. I just want to make the most of it.”
And even when Ryan and Shay aren’t together, they are still competing.
Last year, when Penn State faced Southern California on Oct. 12, Ryan hit the game-winning field goal in overtime to secure a 33-30 win for the Nittany Lions. Later that evening, Shay hit a career-long 41-yard field goal against Unionville.
Ryan and his younger brother Shay during a Penn State football game.
“That was probably one of the proudest and special moments for us as parents,” their father said. “Both our boys, at their various levels, did something quite remarkable on the same day.”
Shay has hopes of surpassing Ryan’s program record. Last weekend, he broke his career-long with a 44-yard field goal against Avon Grove. He told his big brother about those aspirations and has his support.
“Ever since I went to college, Shay is finally able to find his identity and what he brings to the table in terms of football,” Ryan said. “It’s great seeing him succeed. He, without a doubt, has the capability to beat that record, so I hope that he gets that opportunity.”
Frazier believes Ryan and Shay could be the next brother duo to kick in the NFL.
The two already have Sept. 4, 2027, circled on their calendars, when the Nittany Lions host the Orange at Beaver Stadium. This journey isn’t what Shay would have expected, he said, but kicking has given him the chance to play college sports, while forming a lifelong bond with his brother.
“It’s definitely something I don’t take for granted,” he added. “I wouldn’t be here without Ryan.”
