Pitt takes graphic approach to keeping up with college football arms race

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The arms race of college football extends to almost everything a program does off the field. From Clemson’s giant playground slide that drops players into the cafeteria of its $55 million indoor facility to the constantly-changing uniforms at schools like Oregon and Maryland to virtually everything Jim Harbaugh does, programs throughout the country are always working to be bigger and better than the next guy.

All of those efforts are intended to capture the hearts and minds of football prospects, and that competition has found a venue on social media. Twitter’s first usefulness for coaches was as another way to maintain contact with recruits, but the cottage industry of “edits” - creating unique graphics for prospects to use on social media - has grown from eager fans and kids with Photoshop on their iPhones to a full-fledged arm of the recruiting departments in major college football programs.

Now, teams have their own in-house creator of graphics specifically for that purpose, and at Pitt, that’s Zach Lantz.

Lantz joined Pitt’s staff as the director of creative media in April. His job has a few goals, but it ultimately comes down to one key target audience.

“In my opinion, the most important thing is the recruiting,” Lantz told Panther-Lair.com recently. “Whatever we’re putting out and whatever we’re doing, it doesn’t matter what outside people think as much as it’s about the recruits like it. If I worked for marketing, it would be more for the fans, but right now, with what we’re putting out, it’s more for the recruit.”

Lantz got his start in graphics at James Madison. A native of Broadway, Virginia, Lantz attended University of Virginia-Wise before transferring to JMU, where he received his undergraduate degree in Sports and Recreation Management in December 2014. He got his master’s in Sports Leadership this past spring, but his real education came in the JMU football program.

When the Dukes hired Everett Withers in 2014, Lantz became an intern in the team’s recruiting department. Withers arrived at JMU after spending two years as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at Ohio State, and he brought some of the Buckeyes’ flash with him - which then got handed down to Lantz.

“I had no idea how to graphics or anything like that before they got there. They started showing me stuff that (OSU assistant director of creative media and branding) Sam Silverman does - I don’t know if you’ve seen the stuff that he does, but he’s really good.”

Lantz didn’t have a background in graphic design, but with Silverman’s work as an inspiration, he taught himself. He admits that he would “be embarrassed to show anybody the stuff” he did when he started in 2014, but after a year, he took a graduate assistant position as a video coordinator and kept working to hone his skills.

By the end of 2016, when James Madison’s run to the FCS national championship had put some of his work on a bigger stage, Lantz was getting noticed by some bigger programs.

One of the programs that took notice - and there were a few - was Pitt. Director of football recruiting Mark Diethorn had seen Lantz’s productions and reached out via social media in February.

Lantz accepted the position in March and started in mid-April. Since then, he has been leading Pitt’s efforts in making the kinds of graphics and edits that recruits in 2017 want to see - and, perhaps more importantly, share.

Take Blacksburg, Virginia, running back Cole Beck, for instance. He is active on social media and has shared quite a few graphics he has received from Lantz through Pitt’s recruiting department.

Beck’s Twitter feed is an exhibit of recruiting edits, with graphics from college recruiting departments and fans showing the variety - or lack thereof - that go into the efforts. A two-day span in July presents an interesting contrast, as Pitt and East Carolina both used the concept of “legacy” to impress the three-star prospect.

A former football player himself, Lantz can’t help but get a little competitive in his line of work.

“I was never meticulous about anything, to be honest. I grew up playing football and was recruited by some smaller schools to play offensive line, so I still love football and I think that’s one thing that kind of makes it a little different for me when I’m doing graphics and stuff: it’s that I love ball. I have a passion for football more than anything, more than graphic design.

“The reason why I think I’ve been more meticulous about this stuff is that I want my stuff to be better than anyone else’s. It really bothers me when I see good designs or good ideas from other schools and you can look at how they cut a player out and it looks like crap, it looks like they just rushed it. I try to always do that stuff right.”

Lantz said he tries to avoid getting too flashy with the graphics, instead preferring a clean, less busy look. He knows the recruits like to see themselves in a college uniform, so that’s a frequent approach. Mostly, he wants to create an image that aids Pitt’s recruiting efforts - which requires different things for different recruits, and sometimes he needs help on identifying what each kid needs.

“I don’t know the recruits; our coaches have the personal relationship with them, so what we want to do is make sure that our coaches build those relationships so when I’m doing some graphics, I can build it around something that they like.”

That can mean a few things. If Lantz makes a graphic showing a recruit progressing from high school to Pitt to the pros, he wants to make sure the prospect is shown in the uniform of his favorite NFL team. Or if there are certain themes and concepts that might apply to a particular recruit, those will be in the graphic, as was the case with a graphic Lantz made for four-star safety Kwantel Raines in April.

Raines is a standout at Aliquippa, a school that has a long history of sending stars to Pitt. The graphic features the word “Home” and has the faces of former Quips Kaezon Pugh and Darrelle Revis, as well as Aliquippa’s home stadium “The Pit”, in the lettering.

For Lantz, Diethorn and director of player personnel Graham Wilbert, the goal is to have some kind of image, graphic or video for head coach Pat Narduzzi to tweet every day. Wilbert often gives Lantz projects to work on each week, while linebackers coach/recruiting coordinator Rob Harley is also involved (“Honestly, Coach Harley has more ideas than anybody I’ve ever seen,” Lantz says).

Overall, though, the process is collaborative, with ideas coming from throughout Pitt’s South Side facility - starting at the top, like the time in May when Narduzzi came to Lantz with an idea.

“He wanted to have a graphic that showed all the states that we hit, but me and Coach Harley worked together to come up with how we wanted to portray it differently than just a graphic. So the idea came from Coach ‘Duzz and then me and Coach Harley and Mark worked together to try to finish that out.”

One popular concept Lantz did was to create “tykes” - cartoon characters - of the top 60 or so recruits on Pitt’s board, like this one of Ohio linebacker Brian Asamoah.

That idea caught enough attention that players on Pitt’s current roster started reaching out to Lantz, asking if he could create one for them. He even had players he knew from James Madison asking for tykes (he turned those requests down; he is all Pitt now).

Lantz’s primary focus is recruiting, but he does things for the fans, too. In July, he created a set of cell phone home screens with Pitt’s 2017 schedule on them, and he has been making weekly graphics that count down to Pitt’s Sept. 2 season opener against Youngstown State.

As he looks forward, Lantz is eager to get into training camp and the season; he plans to take some new approaches to images and graphics during camp as well as creating a variety of items Pitt’s social media assistants can use during games.