Hayes: 'I felt like it was time'

Pitt’s run of six commitments on June 22, 2019 won’t soon be forgotten. Throughout the morning, Pitt kept landing commitments and later in the day the players started to reveal themselves one by one. The last one to make his commitment known was Dayon Hayes, and his commitment may have been the biggest of them all.

Hayes is a 6’3” and 230-pound defensive end from Westinghouse High School, right in the city of Pittsburgh. He had emerged as Pitt’s top recruiting target over the course of the past few months, and the coaches pulled out all the stops to recruit him. Whether it was Pat Narduzzi tweeting about Wendy’s, where Hayes has a job, or having a senior starter and fellow Pittsburgh native Damar Hamlin host him on his official visit - it was clear that Pitt wanted Dayon Hayes.

So when Hayes finally announced his commitment late on Saturday evening, it was a big moment for the Pitt coaches and of course Hayes himself.

“I felt like it was time; I felt like something special was going to happen at Pitt,” he told Panther-Lair.com following his commitment. “I looked at more as a family than an organization or a program. They made me feel like more of a family.”

Pitt defensive line coach Charlie Partridge ordinarily spends his time recruiting the state of Florida, but he took special interest in Hayes’ recruitment. The two spent a lot of time together during the visit.

“He (Partridge) was talking to me about how much he wants me and how much the city needs me to stay there, which I agreed with,” Hayes explained. “I want to be part of something great.”

Hamlin was one of the biggest recruits to date in the Pat Narduzzi era at Pitt. He was a four-star player from Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School and had a long offer sheet, but through it all he wanted to stay home. It made perfect sense for Pitt to use Hamlin to host Hayes, as he is in a similar position.

“He kept it 100 with me about the coaches and everybody and I respect him for that,” Hayes said of his time spend with Hamlin.

Hayes got to sit down with Narduzzi towards the end of his visit, and that’s when he told him he wanted to commit.

“When I told him I was committing, they all started screaming,” Hayes recounted. “It was fun, people were crying, and everybody was jumping up and down.”

He had an inkling all weekend that he would be committing, so that didn’t stop him from getting an early start on doing some recruiting throughout the weekend.

“Yea I was talking of them for real and telling them what I was doing so they could do it,” Hayes said of his time spent with the other visitors from this weekend.

Hayes said his focus now will be to have a strong senior season for Westinghouse now that he has made his college decision.