DiNucci talks about the flip

Everything was set for Ben DiNucci.

The Pine-Richland senior quarterback was committed and ready to sign a National Letter of Intent with Penn next week. He was happy with that decision and excited for the future.

Then he got a call. Or, rather, his coach got a call, and it changed everything.

"I was sitting around playing Xbox, actually, and I got a call from my head coach," DiNucci told Panther-Lair.com. "He said he just got off the phone with Pitt's new offensive coordinator and he wanted to come watch me throw. So my quarterbacks coach and I did some workouts to get ready.

"So I worked out with Coach (Jim) Chaney and he said he w some minor issues on film but he didn't see them when he came to watch me throw and he said he was very impressed."

That was last Monday. The next morning, Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi called DiNucci to formally offer him a scholarship. Four days later, he made his way to Pitt's campus for an official visit. And on Monday, he became the 15th member of Pitt's 2015 recruiting class.

"One of the biggest things was the coaching staff: Coach Narduzzi and the guys he brought in around him and how comfortable they made me feel," DiNucci said. "And Pitt is 30 minutes away and ACC football; you can't beat that.

"So after my visit I came home, talked to my parents, slept on it and woke up [Monday] morning and still didn't know what to do. Then Coach Narduzzi and Coach Chaney called in the morning and talked to me, and through the day I started to lean toward Pitt just because there are so many more advantages there. So I called them in the afternoon and committed."

It all happened rather quickly for DiNucci, but it wasn't easy.

"No exaggeration: this was the hardest thing I've had to do in my life," he said. "It was hard just because of how tied in I was with Penn and how much I like that school. This was the hardest thing to do.

"I really was torn the whole time, and leading up to the visit, I said I was just going to go into this weekend, see how it goes and if I like it, I like it. If not, then I'll go to Penn."

Sure enough DiNucci liked Pitt. A lot.

"I've never been to Oakland before other than for a basketball game, so even though I live a half hour away, I had no idea about the campus and the facilities, and all of that was new to me," he said. "And then my interaction with the coaches and the current players was great; they treated me awesome, answered all my questions and made me feel like I was part of the team for the two days that I was down there.

"I like Coach Chaney a lot. He's funny as heck. He likes to have fun at what he does and that's probably one of the best parts about him, but he's honest with you 100% and I was around him a lot this weekend. I wanted to see if I could work with him for the next four years."

DiNucci felt good about Chaney, and the same goes for Narduzzi, Pitt's first-year head coach who was hired a month ago.

"From the time I met him until the time I left on Sunday, I could tell how good of a coach he's going to be," DiNucci said of Narduzzi. "He sat down with me and my parents on Sunday, and he said, 'I expect us to be playing for the ACC championship next year; that's my thought process and that's what I expect from my guys.'

"He said he has brought in a coaching staff that loves what they do and they're going to have the guys ready to go."

DiNucci is Pitt's 15th recruit in the class of 2015 and Narduzzi's sixth commitment since becoming head coach of the Panthers last month. He is the sixth offensive prospect to pick the Panthers and the eighth western Pennsylvania prospect to commit to Pitt.

In DiNucci, Pitt is getting the 2014 Gatorade Pennsylvania Player of the Year, a 6'3" 198-pound quarterback who led Pine-Richland to the PIAA Class AAAA state championship game and set a PIAA title game record with 383 passing yards in a loss to St. Joseph's Prep. Along the way, he set WPIAL and PIAA records with 4,269 passing yards.

With DiNucci on board, Pitt is currently set to enter the 2015 season with three scholarship quarterbacks on the roster: Chad Voytik, who will be a redshirt junior in the fall, Adam Bertke, who will be a redshirt freshman, and DiNucci.

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