Donald: 'It's just home'
MORE ON ELLIOT DONALD'S COMMITMENT - Video: Reaction to Donald's decision | Film review: What Pitt is getting in Elliot Donald | Pitt lands four-star DT Donald | The FREE 3-2-1 Column: Could Donald be part of Pitt's best WPIAL class in a decade?
Anytime someone talks about Elliot Donald, they inevitably mention his uncle.
And when it comes to recruiting, those mentions are inevitable.
Will Elliot follow Aaron to Pitt?
As it turns out, Elliot Donald will be a Panther, just like his uncle, Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald. But also like his uncle, Elliot Donald will go to Pitt for his own reasons. He’s not going to be a Panther because his uncle was one; he’s going to be a Panther because he wants to be one himself.
“It’s just home. I get to stay home,” Donald told Panther-Lair.com on Friday afternoon. “I trust Coach (Charlie) Partridge and the rest of the staff to get me where I want to be. And I just feel like this is the best decision for me.”
On Friday, Donald made a public announcement that he was committed to Pitt, but his actual commitment had happened months earlier. He thinks he called the Pitt coaches to commit during the “week of the WPIAL championship game,” which would have been in mid-November last year.
“I told them, I’m thinking about being a Panther; it was right before practice one day,” Donald said. “People have said I was going to Pitt since my sophomore year when I first got an offer, and I knew for a little bit, but it’s a life-changing decision. I wanted to give everybody a chance. It really came down to Pitt and Penn State because of the coaching staffs. I had some great relationships with them.
“It was hard, too, because of the shutdowns. I had my LSU visit set up but then everything got cancelled, so it’s been tough. I’ve just been staying in touch with coaches and getting on these long Zoom calls with these coaching staffs.”
While Donald is glad that he won’t have to make time for most of those Zoom calls anymore, there are some he’s looking forward to continuing. Like his regular conversations with Partridge, Pitt’s defensive line coach who has been building a strong relationship with the four-star lineman from Central Catholic.
“Coach Partridge is a cool dude. I trust him a lot. I got to pick his brain a little bit; we broke down my film and Pitt’s D-line film once every week or every other week and I have a lot of trust in him.
“He talks about my stance, my hand placement, my first step and how to correct those things, just pointing out things I can work on. I told him right from the beginning: I don’t need to hear what I’m good at. When you’re a four-star prospect or whatever, everybody always tells you what you do well and nobody ever tells you what you can work on. I told him, I don’t want to hear all that stuff. I want to know what I can do better.
“And on Pitt’s film, he shows me the scheme, the stuff the D-line does, the stunts with the linebackers, a whole bunch of different stuff. I think it’s perfect for me.”
At 6’3” and 255 pounds, Donald projects as a defensive tackle in college and he ranks as the No. 7 tackle prospect in the class of 2021. He’s also No. 82 overall in the class and No. 5 in the state of Pennsylvania. He is joined in Pitt’s class by West Mifflin’s Nahki Johnson, another four-star defensive lineman from the WPIAL.
Together, Donald and Johnson - along with Central Valley safety Stephon Hall, who is also committed to Pitt - will turn their attention to some of the other local standouts like Baldwin lineman Dorien Ford, Gateway linebacker Derrick Davis and North Allegheny tight end Khalil Dinkins.
“I’ve been talking to Dorien and Derrick, just trying to see where their minds are at,” he said. “I want them to do what’s best for them, but I also want to work on them to get them to stay at Pitt.”
With Donald on board, Pitt has 18 commitments in the class of 2021.