Thanks to John Tecce (@PvilleVP) for the tip.

The nation’s #1 ranked fullback Zach Zwinak out of Frederick, Maryland has verbally committed to the Blue and White friday night prior to Penn State’s beatdown of Syracuse. Zach pulled the trigger following his high school game against visiting Middletown where he scored on a 33-yard touchdown run where he broke the 100 yard mark in the first half and amassed 209 yards on 10 carries including another touchdown run of 60 yards before the night was over. How did he celebrate? By calling Penn State to commit verbally.

Recruiting services recently declared that Zach was down to Virginia Tech and Penn State before he finally made his decision last friday. He held close to 14 scholarship offers from the likes of Wake Forest, Michigan, California, Stanford, etc.

“It’s a great school, great people, great football,” Zwinak said. “It’s a relief. I can just focus on my team and the season.”

Rated by both Scout and Rivals as a four-star prospect and the #1 player at the fullback position in the 2010 class. This is what his coach had to say about the player:

Offensively, he can wear you down with his power or he can score on one play with his break-away speed from anywhere on the field.

You can clearly see the break-away speed his high school coach Rick Conner is talking about here:

He’s elusive, makes the quick reads between the tackles and is especially hard to bring down.

Zack played on both sides of the ball his junior season accounting for 1,447 yards on 133 attempts including 19 TDs. Defensively he played linebacker piling up 53 tackles, 11 of them for losses, 5 sacks and 3 interceptions. Simply an outstanding athlete and yet another jewel in one of Penn State’s finest recruiting classes in modern history.

Nittany Network got a chance to catch up with Zach when he visited Penn State back in May. Here is their interview:

Cue up the dancing monkey!