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Everything clicked to get Mack to commit

Everything was going right for Buddy Mack on his official visit to Pitt over the weekend. He was impressed with Pitt’s facilities and weight room, he got along well with the team’s coaches and players and he liked what he saw from the Panthers’ defense.

The visit was all that the Duncan (S.C.) Byrnes safety prospect hoped it would be, and the final step was a meeting with Pat Narduzzi.

“I think it really clicked when I was talking to Coach Narduzzi and he was explaining how real he is with his players and that’s what I want to be around,” Mack told Panther-Lair.com. “I want to be around a coach that’s real with you, 100%, all the time.”

So, on Tuesday night, roughly 48 hours after he returned from his Pitt official visit, Mack made it official and committed to the Panthers.

“I think he’s a great man with lots of goals for his team and for players in general,” Mack said of Narduzzi. “I see why they have success because the players buy into what the coaches have set for them.”

Mack got to see all sides of Pitt on his visit, from experiencing the University’s urban campus (“Everything is close together, I really like that,” he said) to spending time with players on the current team. His host on the visit was redshirt freshman defensive end John Morgan, and he also spent a lot of time with freshmen Davis Beville and Nate Temple - a pair of South Carolina natives like Mack.

“I asked John, Nate and Davis about the coaches, and they explained it,” Mack said. “They said that the stuff Coach Narduzzi said, he was being real about it. He wasn’t holding anything back. John told me that Coach Narduzzi is the same guy every day, whether you have a bad game, a good game or it’s just a mediocre game, he’s going to be the same guy and he’s going to push you as hard as he can.”

At 6’1” and 183 pounds, Mack projects as a safety in Pitt’s defense, and he said that safeties coach Cory Sanders focused on discussing the boundary safety position specifically, which Mack thinks can be a good fit.

“He said you have to be ready to come down and play the run, come down and go against any type of running back and also be able to cover well man-to-man when you need to. You just have to be a competitor.

“I watched them throughout the season. The defense, it attacks, and that’s what I like: I like to attack the offense. I don’t like to sit back in a zone all the time.”

The Pitt coaches also emphasized some of Pitt’s recent history of sending players to the NFL, including some very successful local products.

“I looked at James Conner’s story and I think about how he came back and was dominant, and I look at Aaron Donald and how dominant he is and how he’s the best player in the NFL right now. And when I was up there, they were telling me how those guys come back and work out all the time, so I figured, if they can come back to it, why can’t I?”

Mack is the third defensive back expected to sign with Pitt on Wednesday, joining Hunter Sellers and Jahvante Royal.

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