Tight End

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Practice had ended minutes earlier, and most of the Eagles ambled to the locker room to shower and get out of the sun. Some complied to autograph and interview requests. Clay Harbor stayed on the field running routes for the backup quarterbacks. Harbor has a personal mission this training camp. After practice, the third-year tight end needs to catch 50 passes. He had caught extra passes during the last two training camps, but it was an inexact routine. This season, Harbor made an initiative to catch 50 each day. "That will help you a lot," Harbor said, "knowing you got 50 more catches after practice than your competition.

It looks as if Nick Arcidiacono, a tight end for defending PIAA Class AAA state champion Archbishop Wood, will be teaming up with one of his brothers in college. On Thursday, during a 3 p.m. news conference in the gymnasium of the Warminster school, the 6-foot-4, 238-pounder, a rising senior, is expected to commit to play at Rutgers or Penn State. His brother Brandon was a standout center for Wood's 14-1 squad and will leave Sunday for Rutgers. His eldest brother, Mark, a product of St. Joseph's Prep, is a junior redshirt guard at Penn State.

ONE OF THE things the Eagles didn't do in the 2012 NFL draft was select a tight end. This reflected several things. One was a lousy tight-end draft class, which featured exactly one guy, Stanford's Coby Fleener, taken in the first two rounds (he went in the second to the Colts). It also reflected how good and durable 27-year-old Brent Celek has been. Presumably, it showed how much faith the Birds have in Celek's primary backup, third-year player Clay Harbor. Maybe somewhere in there, too, was the fact that the Eagles like Brett Brackett, the former Penn State wideout turned practice-squad tight end last season.

Two years removed from college, Clay Harbor is back in class. The tight end is participating in his first full professional offseason this spring - he was drafted in 2010 and waited through the NFL lockout last year. The extra time with the coaches, he said, means a higher football education, and better results in the fall. In particular, Harbor wants to be a smarter blocker and a more fluid route runner. A couple of tweaks, along with extra two-tight-end packages, might pull him off the sidelines more often this season.

Dwayne Savage, who played football at Rancocas Valley and Montclair State, has been named coach at Camden High School. Savage replaces Durwin Pearson, who coached Camden for the previous three seasons. Pearson is now an assistant coach at Camden Catholic. Savage, who teaches physical education in middle school in Pennsauken, is a former assistant coach at Rancocas Valley, Woodrow Wilson, and Pennsauken. He is a 1989 Rancocas Valley graduate who was an All-New Jersey Athletic Conference defensive back at Montclair State.

LAWRENCE, Kan. - Notre Dame tight end Mike Ragone has signed a grant-in-aid form to complete his transfer to Kansas, where he will be reunited with former coach Charlie Weis. Ragone, who was a star at Camden Catholic and a top recruit, has completed his undergraduate degree and will be eligible to play for the Jayhawks immediately. He joins quarterback Dayne Crist and linebacker Anthony McDonald as former Irish players who will finish their college careers in Lawrence. Weis recruited all three players to Notre Dame while he was the head coach in South Bend.

NFL NETWORK analyst Mike Mayock, a Newtown Square resident, will break down each position in advance of the draft for Daily News readers. Here is Part 4 with his take on the tight ends: BEST COBY FLEENER Stanford 6-6, 247 Hand: 10 Arm: 33 3/8 40-yard dash: 4.56 225-bench: 27 Projected Rd.: 2 Mayock: "He's got very good hands and can get vertical. In Stanford's offense, they demand physicality. This kid is not a trained killer.

THE SEEDS FOR revolutionizing the tight end position probably were planted in the 1980s and '90s, when guys like Kellen Winslow and Shannon Sharpe were demonstrating to stodgy traditionalists that big, fast, sure-handed guys could be primary targets in the passing game and not just additional blockers who occasionally had footballs tossed their way. But change can be slow to take root at the highest levels of a sport that tends to cling to...

Penn State's recruiting class of 2013 continues to grow. Offensive lineman Brendan Mahon gave his verbal commitment to coach Bill O'Brien on Saturday, becoming the fifth player in the class. All are ranked as four-star players by Rivals.com. Mahon, 6-5, 302, from Randolph, N.J., is considered a four-star prospect and is ranked as the 190th player overall by Rivals. "Penn State was always a school I was real interested in," Mahon told Rivals.com, "and after spending some time with [Penn State sophomore lineman]