Carretta: 'It felt like the right fit for me'
Ryan Carretta took an official visit to Pitt last weekend and walked away from that trip very impressed with the school. Still, the 6’5” and 318-pound linemen from Columbus (OH) wanted to take one more official visit in June before deciding, and that is exactly what happened over the weekend.
Carretta went to East Lansing to check out Michigan State, but after spending the weekend with the Spartans, he decided he would rather be a Panther. He let the Pitt coaches know early in the afternoon on Sunday he was going to commit.
“They are both completely different campuses and settings,” Carretta said of his final decision. “I just wanted to see how I felt at them one last time and see which one felt better for me.
He added, “I liked Michigan State, like it was good but I just felt more at home at home at Pitt and the coaches there, so that was like what my main thing was.”
The fit at Pitt won out in this one. Carretta connected with the Pitt coaches last weekend on his visit. He enjoyed spending time with offensive line coach Dave Borbely and decided it was the right time to commit to Pitt.
“I liked the staff; I liked the people,” he said about what he likes about Pitt. “It felt like the right fit for me and I just wanted to make the decision before spots fill up.”
Carretta chose Pitt over Michigan State, and he also held additional offers from Duke, Illinois, Iowa State, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, Michigan, Purdue, Tennessee, and West Virginia. He checks in as a three-star according to Rivals.com.
Carretta is listed as a tackle, but has the versatility to play guard. He said the Pitt coaches did not get into a specific spot with him just yet.
“I’m pretty sure they’ll have me play whatever position wise,” he explained. "So we haven’t dug too deep with that, but we’ll see what happens with that.”
Carretta has been part of a flurry of commitments for the Pitt program since the start of June. Pitt has netted 15 different commitments since the start of the month, with a few more still that need to be announced.
He is one of two offensive linemen in the class after Colin Van Rooy, another Ohio native, also committed on Sunday. Carretta said he will ‘try to help out how I can’ in terms of helping the staff recruit further. He only used two official visits in June, and would have the option to use three more, but he doesn’t think that will happen.
Carretta is eager to get to Pitt and continue meeting more members of the 2023 recruiting class.
“I talked to a few commitments and we’re excited to get to know each other and work with each other,” he explained.