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In the fall of 2021, Kyle Louis and Rasheem Biles were the sharks for two very successful high school football teams.

In East Orange, New Jersey, Louis was the top defender on a defense that allowed 7.7 points per game in a perfect 13-0 state championship season.

In Pickerington, Ohio, Biles was making plays all over the field to help Pickerington Central go 12-2.

They were separated by 500 miles, but they were both on a path to Pitt.

Now, three years later, they’re bookend outside linebackers in the rebuilt middle of the Panthers’ defense, and the serendipity of matching monikers has stuck.

“Before I came to college, I called myself a shark,” Biles said this week. “Kyle Louis, before he came to college, he called himself a shark. So it was just perfect when we got up here, to be honest.”

Biles and Louis are two members of a group of four young linebackers who figure to make up the bulk of Pitt’s rotation at the outside positions this season. The other two are sophomores Jordan Bass and Braylan Lovelace, and Biles thinks the unit features players who are quicker, more athletic and more explosive than linebackers tend to be.

“I mean, our group of linebackers, we fly, all of us fly around,” he said. “That's why we call it the Sharks: we like to just hunt everybody. So I feel like the group we got, our young linebackers, it's going to be scary.”

Biles made his impact almost immediately as a freshman last year. He tied the Pitt record for blocked kicks in a single season when he deflected punts against West Virginia, North Carolina and Florida State. And while he didn’t do much on defense - just eight snaps all season, according to Pro Football Focus - Biles sees his accomplishments on special teams as an extension of who he is as a player and as a shark.

“I just look at it as like, make a play, be a shark, you know what I mean?” He said. “That's why I call myself a shark, so really just hunt, you feel me? I just have that mindset every time. Make a play.”

Biles is currently working at Money linebacker and will either start there or see significant reps as the top reserve. The Money linebacker, which plays to the short side of the field, is one of two outside linebacker spots that are open for competition this season; the Star (on the wide side of the the field) is also vacant after Solomon DeShields and Bangally Kamara - the primary starters on the outside last season - transferred to Texas A&M and South Carolina, respectively.

The play at outside linebacker in 2023 left something to be desired, and it will fall to the young linebackers on this year’s roster to elevate those two crucial positions.

Just as Biles is penciled in at Money, Louis entered camp as the presumed starter at Star.

Louis is the other original shark in the group, and he arrived at Pitt a year before Biles, Bass and Lovelace came with the 2023 recruiting class. But an injury limited Louis to just four games as a freshman, and he played fewer than 200 defensive snaps as a reserve linebacker last season.

But now Louis is healthy and ready to show what he can do.

“I’m really grateful,” Louis said at the start of training camp. “Even through the injuries, I’m really grateful that happened because it made me appreciate that I have to keep working hard, and every time I’m on the field, every snap, no matter if it’s a run away from me or a quick screen away from me or just you can’t make that play, appreciate that snap and just go full speed every play.

“I would have bumps and bruises along the road, and I think it made me stronger the whole way. Every time I got injured, it made me stronger. It definitely helped me prepare myself where I’m in the spot I’m in now. I’m ready to take off. I’m ready to take my extra hours in film, put the extra work in, bring the young guys - I’m ready to change the atmosphere of the linebacker room.”

And the change in the atmosphere of the linebacker is one that he, like Biles, feels naturally given to lead.

“We were gravediggers last year; we’re sharks now,” Louis said. “We’re going to make a difference now. We’re not having another 3-9 season. We’re here to make noise, let people know that’s a one-time thing.”

Keye Thompson, a sixth-year senior transfer linebacker from Ohio, is excited to see Louis on the field - partially because he sees something familiar in the redshirt sophomore.

“Kyle, I kind of see a little bit of myself back in my earlier on career days at OU,” Thompson said last week. “He flies around like me, bends, gets to the ball. So he's a ball player for sure.”

Thompson isn’t the only member of the Pitt program who thinks highly of what Louis has shown so far.

“I think if you had someone rank the best players on defense, he'd be in the top three of probably everybody's pick, I would think,” Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said, explaining that the coaches will occasionally poll the players to get a sense of what they think of their teammates.

Louis is one of the top players in those polls, and for good reason.

“Kyle Louis is a playmaker.”

Now Louis and Biles - the original sharks - are projected to be top contributors on a defense replacing nine starters. There will be a period of transition, of course, but Biles thinks that the knowledge he gained over the last year will go a long way in helping him succeed on the field.

“I know a whole lot more than I even thought I could. I know a lot more stuff with the D-line, with the corners, not just my assignment, I know more about what everybody's doing on the field. So a lot more details of defense.”