Healed from injury, Whitehead turns attention to improvement, leadership

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ABC wouldn’t show the replay.

Play-by-play announcer Steve Levy said it was too gruesome to air again, so unless you caught it live, you probably didn’t get a good look at the play that snapped Jordan Whitehead’s right forearm in half during Pitt’s win over Clemson last season.

The public didn’t get to see that play again. It didn’t get to see Whitehead tackling Clemson receiver Hunter Renfrow near the visitors sideline after a 25-yard reception in the third quarter. It didn’t get to see Whitehead’s arm get trapped under Renfrow. It didn’t get to see that arm fracture in such a fashion that team doctors had to fit him with an air cast right there on the sidelines.

The public hasn’t seen it. But Whitehead has watched it “a couple times,” by his estimation, and it doesn’t make him feel queasy to watch his arm bend in such an unnatural way.

“Not really,” Whitehead said Thursday as Pitt opened spring camp 2017. “I just wish I didn’t - how I tackled him, I wish I didn’t tackle him like that. That’s all. That’s my mistake I wish I could change.”

How would Whitehead change the tackle?

“I kind of just hit him low and my arm got stuck under him and it kind of snapped; I could have just pushed him out of bounds,” he said. “That’s why I keep going back to, like, ‘I should have done something different.’”

Obviously, Whitehead knows that the play can’t be changed; the trauma his arm suffered can’t be undone and the scar that tears through tattoos seemingly from wrist to elbow isn’t going away anytime soon. And while doctors have told him the bone is healed and he is 100%, he wears a sleeve on that forearm - his decision, not on the advice of a trainer.

While he’s still getting comfortable having an arm that is in one piece again, Whitehead also has some other things from 2016 on his mind. In particular, he’s thinking about his performance. He was a second-team All-ACC selection last season after leading Pitt with more than seven tackles per game, but he can’t shake the feeling that 2016 was a step down from his freshman campaign a year earlier.

“I think I struggled and missed more tackles than I did my freshman year; I think that separated me from my freshman year to last year, just making more tackles,” Whitehead said. “Junior year, I’m picking up this role and being a leader on the defense and learning multiple positions, just to get comfortable with everybody, every position because you never know what’s going to happen.”

Whitehead can’t put his finger on why some of those missed tackles happened - “I just missed them; that’s on me,” he said - but he does acknowledge that he might have been trying to do too much in some situations, particularly as Pitt’s defense grew more porous against the pass.

“I probably (did) a couple times, just trying to make a play; not really focused on my assignment, just trying to make the play. It happens here and there to everybody, but I think just keying on your assignment will always make a better outcome than trying to do too much.”

While Whitehead works to stay in his lane on the field, he is also trying to take on a new role: leader. Pitt lost 18 scholarship seniors plus James Conner from the 2016 roster this offseason, leaving a serious void of leadership all over the team and especially on defense.

As a star who has played a lot of football in his two years at Pitt, Whitehead knows he’s a natural candidate to replace the likes of Matt Galambos, Mike Caprara and Ejuan Price as defensive leaders in 2017.

“I would say anybody, juniors and seniors, should all fill that role. I’m not saying freshmen can’t fill that role, but when you’re a junior and a senior, I think you should kind of take ownership and try to step up and be a leader.”

To that end, Whitehead hopes he can lead his teammates to a new way of thinking - and a new level of success.

“Everybody has to come out here with a different attitude. We’re trying to change the culture around. It can’t just be okay with eight-win seasons. I think if people start thinking about national championships, just thinking ahead always makes you motivated and play harder.”