Defenders from 2023 class poised to make an impact
MORE COVERAGE FROM SPRING CAMP:
- Spring camp report: 3/26/2024 - Defense ascending, QB rundown and more
- The Morning Pitt: Is Narduzzi's best recruiting class emerging in spring camp?
- Narduzzi on the scrimmage, the elements, the quarterbacks and more
- Recruiting rundown: Three notable prospects at practice on Tuesday
- WPIAL lineman gets a "hometown offer"
On Tuesday, Pat Narduzzi took to the podium in Pitt’s team room for a recap the Panthers’ first scrimmage of spring camp, and he was asked to name a few players who stood out in the scrimmage, the head coach pointed to the back of the room
“There’s two of them sitting back here - Cruce and Braylan,” Narduzzi said. That would be Cruce Brookins and Braylan Lovelace, and the nod they got from Narduzzi on Tuesday was just the latest bit of praise the two second-year players have gotten this spring - whether they were in Narduzzi’s line of vision or not.
“I think I warned you about what Brookins was doing last week, and he had a heck of a day,” Narduzzi said, and his “warnings” about Brookins date back further than last week. Even in the first week of spring camp, Narduzzi was talking up the redshirt freshman from Steel Valley.
“Cruce Brookins is a dude,” Narduzzi said. “He’s going to be a really good player. We saw that at the end of the year; he started getting in and playing. He’s smart. He understands the defense. And he plays with an attitude. He’s a guy that you’re going to see a lot of football next fall, for sure.”
And Narduzzi wasn’t alone in getting excited about Brookins and his potential,
“He’s going to be that playmaker,” veteran safety Javon McIntyre said earlier in spring camp. “He’s the safety behind Don (Donovan McMillon) - he’s the second boundary safety. He’s going to be a player. Trust me. He’s going to be a player here.”
It’s the same with Lovelace, who played in 11 games as a true freshman last season and has been working as the second-team middle linebacker this spring, even compelling Narduzzi to say that the sophomore from Leechburg “gives you little flashes of SirVocea Dennis at the Mike linebacker spot.”
Lovelace’s emergence isn’t new, though; veteran linebacker Solomon DeShields saw it coming and mentioned it during the first week of spring camp.
“He’s not playing like a high school guy,” DeShields said. “He’s playing like - not a vet yet, but he’s speeding up. He’s getting all the calls down, all the different adjustments for the defense, the trade calls, the switches, all of that. So I’m seeing a lot of growth in him, and he’s taking control of the defense.”
Brookins and Lovelace have had good camps so far, but they aren’t the only players from the 2023 recruiting class - particularly on defense - who have been making a name for themselves.
In fact, after one season and a few weeks of spring camp, it’s looking like the defensive players in Pitt’s 2023 recruiting class are on track to have more hits than misses.
A lot more hits than misses.
Lovelace played in 11 out of 12 games last season, but all three of Pitt’s linebacker recruits in that class saw the field. Jordan Bass played in 10 games and Rasheem Biles played in nine, and those three linebackers made an impact as freshmen: Lovelace had a scoop-and-score touchdown in the loss at Virginia Tech, Biles blocked three punts and Bass started the game at Wake Forest after DeShields was injured on the opening kickoff.
At safety, Brookins is joined by Jesse Anderson, another player in the 2023 recruiting class who has been making noise in spring camp, most recently in Saturday’s scrimmage when he had a highlight-reel play for the defense.
“Jesse got a little pick-six action in,” Narduzzi said. “He doesn’t do everything right, but I look at where Jesse is right now compared to where he was last fall, just from an attitude and, really knowledge - I look at those two things and he’s got a great attitude, he’s got a smile on his face all the time. And his knowledge is much better. He did a nice job on the interception he did get, just playing it the right way and he is much improved.
“I talked about safety, how we’re older at that position with Donovan and Javon and P.J. (O’Brien); then you throw in Cruce doing what he’s doing, like, we’ve got - Cruce is going to get some action at the nickel back, which I think he can be a threat as a blitzer to the field, which it’s always good to have that guy. He’ll have a major role. And then Jesse, we’ll be able to rotate those guys and keep them fresh and we’ll see how Jesse progresses.”
And then there’s Isaiah Neal, the highest-rated prospect in the 2023 class who will almost certainly be in the rotation at defensive tackle this season.
Lovelace, Bass, Biles, Brookins, Anderson and Neal - that’s six players from the nine-man defensive recruiting class, and they’re all in line to be on the two-deep as second-year players.
“We’re definitely forming a connection,” Brookins said of the players in his recruiting class. “When we watch film, I feel like I just see us flying around making plays. It feels good to see people from our class doing it.”
Beyond those six players, Pitt also signed cornerback Shadarian Harrison and defensive ends Antonio Camon and Maverick Gracio in the 2023 class. Lovelace thinks that group of nine could be a foundation for the Panthers for years to come.
“We’re going to turn Pittsburgh around. We’re going to bring an ACC to this. I believe our group is one of the best recruiting groups to come to Pitt, and I believe that we’re going to bring the ACC.”