THE RANKINGS SO FAR - No. 15 - The class of 2011 | No. 14 - The class of 2012 | No. 13 - The class of 2015 | No. 12 - The class of 2005 | No. 11 - The class of 2004 | No. 10 - The class of 2014 | No. 9 - The class of 2003 | No. 8 - The class of 2010 | No. 7 - The class of 2009 | No. 6 - The class of 2008
When a new coach is hired, his first goal is to finish the recruiting class that he inherits from the previous coach. But once that's done, the new coach and his staff turn their attention to arguably the most important task they'll face:
Recruiting their first full class.
And oftentimes that first full class has turned out to be pretty good. So good, in fact, that three of the top five classes in this ranking are "first full classes." And that starts today with the class that checks in at No. 5: the class of 2016.
That was Pat Narduzzi's first full recruiting class, and here's what it looked like:
In terms of hype, not many periods in recent Pitt history rival late January/early February 2016. Fresh off a good debut season, Narduzzi and his staff went to work putting a class that had quantity (24 recruits signed that year) and quality (the class ranked No. 29 nationally (the best ranking for a Pitt class since 2008, and a ranking that Narduzzi has not topped since).
The class started off as usual with a June push; that year's five commitments don't look like much compared to what Narduzzi and company have done in recent years, but back in 2015, it was a standard June performance.
Once the season was over, though, the staff turned things up a notch. They flipped three commitments from Rutgers, cleaned up on a big December official visit weekend, beat out serious competition for a pair of defensive tackles and held off Virginia Tech and Miami for some of those schools' in-state targets.
Things reached a peak right before Signing Day. Two days before Signing Day, actually, when four-star safety Damar Hamlin went on KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh and announced that he would be staying home for college and, on the same night, local standout Aaron Mathews announced that he was flipping his commitment from Penn State to Pitt.
Athletic Director Scott Barnes later commented that Pitt saw an uptick in season ticket sales that week.
So how did the class pan out? As always, there were some hits and some misses.
The class of 24 recruits produced four who have already earned "star" status in Damar Hamlin, Maurice Ffrench, Patrick Jones and Rashad Weaver. Those four players alone rival just about any quartet produced by another class in the last 15 years. And there's good depth behind them: Bryce Hargrove, Amir Watts, Phil Campbell, Keyshon Camp, Aaron Mathews and Chase Pine have all been starters or top contributors.
The problem with the 2016 class is that the recruits who had a lot of stars haven't necessarily produced at that level. Hamlin has been very good, of course, and Watts was a solid starter for a few seasons. But none of the other three four-star recruits in the class - Ruben Flowers, George Hill and Kaezon Pugh - contributed anything at Pitt, for various reasons.
And 10 more players from the class in addition to Flowers, Hill and Pugh also left Pitt for one reason or another before finishing their eligibility: Therran Coleman, Thomas MacVittie, Chawntez Moss, Zack Gilbert, Henry Miller, Brandon Ford, Bricen Garner, Zack Williams, Justin Morgan and Elias Reynolds.
Attrition is inevitable, but 2016 has a fairly high rate of it and the list of players who left early includes some of the top recruits in the class.
Still, 2016 produced some important pieces of the team that won the Coastal Division in 2018 and will look to do it again this year.
