The Pitt football program landed a commitment earlier this week and it came from Henry Searcy, a 6-foot-3 and 180-pound long snapper out of Tallahassee (Fla). Searcy was previously committed to ACC foe Syracuse before flipping to the Panthers earlier this week.
“I liked Pitt more because of the coaches and the players that I’ve met there,” Searcy told Panther-Lair.com about his decision to flip to Pitt. “The coaches are a lot nicer. The head coach called me and he was a really nice guy.”
Searcy said he will come to Pitt initially as a PWO, or preferred walk-on, and will be placed on scholarship after a redshirt season. In one of the pending changes with college football is that walk-ons are going away, and more players will be placed on scholarship with expanded roster limits, which will ultimately benefit specialists in the future.
The new Pitt commit has yet to visit Pittsburgh. He plans to make that happen at the end of this month once the dead period ends. Part of what Searcy liked about Pitt, even without seeing it in person, was having a connection with current Panthers’ long snapper Nilay Upadhyayula.
“He just called me one day and was like, ‘I’m happy that you committed. You’re going to love it here and you’re going to be able to grow behind me for a year and then develop into a really good long snapper,’” Searcy said of his conversation with Upadhyayula.
Pitt’s enthusiasm for recruiting a specialist like himself, resonated with Searcy. Pat Narduzzi sent off his usual, ‘Pitt is it’ tweet when he decided, which caught his attention in a positive manner. The other aspect that stood out about Pitt was being able to be coached by Jacob Bronowski. The first-year Pitt special teams coordinator is regarded as one of the best in the business for coaching special teams.
“He’s probably one of the nicest coaches I’ve talked to,” Searcy said of Bronowski. "From what I’ve heard he’s like the best special teams coordinator in the country and what he has done with past schools he’s been with has been amazing.”
Searcy is the 22nd member of Pitt’s 2025 recruiting class. He is currently graded as a two-star prospect by Rivals.
