Pitt hosted Nakia Griffin-Stewart for an official visit back on February 9th. He walked away from that visit with a good impression of the school, but did not give the Panthers a commitment. That all changed this afternoon, when he finally made the call to commit to Pitt. It took a team effort from coaches, players, and even a former player to help land the Rutgers graduate transfer at Pitt.

“They recruited me from like the first hour I entered the portal and Matt Flanagan, who used to be a former teammate of mine always spoke so highly of his time spent at Pitt and when Matt got the news that I was transferring, he was one of the biggest recruiters as well,” Griffin-Stewart told Panther-Lair.com. “So just having somebody who I know personally and went to college with previously going through the same process with much success and obviously he had a chance to play in the NFL, so that was definitely comforting from Matt’s input.”

During his visit to Pittsburgh, he took in a basketball game with Pat Narduzzi, and spent most of his time with quarterback Kenny Pickett. Both Pickett and Griffin-Stewart are natives of New Jersey and that helped bond their relationship.

“It was very important; you want to go somewhere that has experienced and well-playing quarterback, and I think that’s what Kenny is,” Griffin-Stewart said of Pickett. “Going through my visit with him, it was my first time meeting him, he’s also a New Jersey guy so we did have some mutual friends and he’s a great guy and definitely a player I’d like to play for. He has respect from his teammates and coaches, and he’s definitely somebody that’s intriguing to play with.”

While it took some input from guys like Pickett and Flanagan, in the end the coaches did most of the heavy lifting in this recruitment.

“Coach Salem, Coach Narduzzi, and Coach Whipple’s recruitment with me has been nothing but professional and mature,” he said. “They didn’t tell me like a high school kid, they sold me like what they could offer me academically and athletically at the University of Pittsburgh.”

Pitt has had issues with the tight end position in recent years. Pitt’s starting tight end Tyler Sear left the team midway through the season, and three guys combined for ten catches in 2018. While Griffin-Stewart did not put up big numbers at Rutgers, he is expected to come in and compete for playing time right away in an offense that is supposed to be tight end friendly under new offensive coordinator Mark Whipple.

“He’s looking for somebody who is a balanced player,” Griffin-Stewart explained. “He wants somebody who can give support in the run game, but wants somebody that he can experiment with in the passing game, so that was a big selling point. We spoke about some of the things he did at UMass with Adam Breneman and he likes to get the ball to his playmakers and I can go over there and show that I’m a playmaker, and he’ll do his job to get the playmakers the ball and that’s really it.”

In the recruiting process, Griffin-Stewart only visited Pitt, but he also heard from Alabama, Cal, Maryland, and Northwestern. He is set to graduate from Rutgers in May, and plans to make it to Pitt shortly thereafter.