In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're thinking about a big-time local commitment, the future at linebacker, the biggest commit in the class and more.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
It’s always good to get a Quip
Pitt landed a big one yesterday, and it happened in Beaver County.
Cameron Lindsey, the four-star linebacker at Aliquippa, committed to Pitt yesterday during an announcement ceremony at Aliquippa High School. That’s a big get for Pitt on a number of levels. Lindsey is the No. 22 outside linebacker prospect in the class of 2024, and he picked the Panthers over offers from Cincinnati, Maryland, Penn State, Syracuse and West Virginia among others.
Lindsey felt like a classic off-the-field Backyard Brawl, with Pitt and WVU going head-to-head for a recruit. Beating the Mountaineers for a western Pa. kid is always ideal, particularly when Pitt-WVU games are on the schedule, and it didn’t hurt to have Penn State in the hunt either; Lindsey may or may not have been a priority for the Nittany Lions, but they were after him at one point.
So it’s a win for Pitt to beat the two closest rivals.
But it’s also a win for Pitt to land a high-priority Aliquippa target, since that hasn’t happened all that much recently.
The last Quip that Pitt pursued was linebacker Zuriah Fisher in the 2020 class; he signed with Penn State. Before that, the Panthers landed receiver Will Gipson in the 2019 class but missed out on defensive back M.J. Devonshire that year when he signed with Kentucky.
In 2018, Pitt lost linebacker Kwantel Raines to West Virginia. The Panthers got Kaezon Pugh in 2016 but struck out in 2014 when Dravon Henry and Jaleel Fields both went to West Virginia (although I don't know how hard Pitt was pushing for Fields by the end).
That 2014 class seemed to be the tipping point, the year when the tide turned and Pitt’s Aliquippa pipeline started showing cracks.
From 2014-20, the Panthers landed just two of seven targets from Aliquippa - a miss rate that would have been unheard-of just a few years earlier.
Now Pitt might be getting back in the game. Lindsey is the first Power Five Quip since Fisher three years ago and the Panthers got him.
The next step is to turn Lindsey’s commitment into some momentum in Aliquippa, because there’s another Power Five prospect on the way. That’s Tiqwai Hayes, a four-star running back in the 2025 recruiting class. He’s a top-200 prospect as a sophomore and has offers from just about everyone you would expect to see on the list for an Aliquippa standout:
Pitt. Michigan. Ohio State. Penn State. West Virginia.
He’s got more, too, but I’m guessing it will be one of those five. Having a teammate at Pitt for the next four years certainly shouldn’t hurt Pitt’s chances.
Reloading the linebackers
Lindsey’s commitment is good for helping the Panthers get back in with Aliquippa, but there are more specific-to-the-roster implications, too.
We’ve talked about it at different points in the last few months, but Pitt’s linebacker room for the 2023 season is pretty top-heavy. The Panthers have five players who will be junior or senior-eligible this coming season; at least four of those five will be significant contributors, and while that bodes well for the group - it’s good to have experienced veterans in key roles - it also creates a bit of a problem for next year, because a bunch of those guys will be gone.
Shayne Simon is out of eligibility after this season. Bangally Kamara could come back as a super senior but I’m guessing that won’t happen.
Brandon George and Solomon DeShields will probably return, but I could see one or both deciding not to, depending on certain circumstances.
So Pitt is looking at losing a fairly decent chunk of its top linebackers next offseason, and there’s not a whole lot behind them.
Literally, there’s one guy who has been on campus longer than six months - redshirt freshman Kyle Louis and three freshmen.
That’s a pretty big gap in the classes, and while there is a variety of factors that led to the situation, the end result is that the Pitt coaches have had some work to do.
They did a big chunk of that work in last year’s class when they signed three linebackers: Jordan Bass, Rasheem Biles and Braylan Lovelace.
For the 2024 class, it looks like the coaches are trying to do the same thing. They started with Davin Brewton from Red Bank Catholic in New Jersey; he’s a middle linebacker prospect and he committed to Pitt in May. Then they added Lindsey on Thursday, so that’s two.
I think the coaches want three in the class. There’s probably a chance that one of the unannounced commitments from the first two official visit weekends is a linebacker, which would get to three. If not - or if the coaches want four - it will be interesting to see where they turn.
Four-star Gabriel Williams was high on Pitt after his official visit but committed to Virginia Tech last weekend. Reggie Powers was another top target - probably higher on the board than Williams - but he committed to Michigan State on Wednesday. DJ McCormick previously scheduled an official visit to Pitt, but he committed to UCF on Sunday, which would seem to take him off the board (if he was even still on the board).
Personally, I think three is a good target number for linebackers in the class. Bringing Lindsey, Brewton and one other to go with Bass, Biles and Lovelace would make for a really solid pair of back-to-back classes that could restock the linebacker room.
What’s interesting to me is that Brewton and Lindsey both look like middle linebackers (which means they could also play Money linebacker on the boundary side) while last year’s recruits all project as Star linebackers on the wide side of the field. Bass and Biles played safety in high school, while Lovelace was a middle linebacker at Leechburg simply to give him as many chances to make plays as possible.
Pitt has basically created the two-deep at linebacker for 2025 and beyond with these two recruiting classes. 2024 might be a bit dicey depending on who leaves and who stays, but by 2025, Bass, Biles, Lovelace, Brewton and Lindsey will probably all be involved.
The biggest commitment yet
Lindsey was a big commitment for Pitt, and he’s the third four-star prospect to pick the Panthers in this cycle, which gave the class a nice bump to 8th in the national team recruiting rankings. But I have to be honest: I think Pitt got an even bigger commitment in the last week.
In fact, I think Pitt got its biggest commitment of the class in the last week.
This isn’t a size joke. This is me saying that I don’t know if we’ve given enough of a bump to the news that Pitt landed Caleb Holmes.
Don’t get distracted by the stars (which should ultimately take care of themselves). Holmes, an offensive guard prospect from Creekside High School in Fairburn (Ga.), was a huge get for the Panthers.
Holmes committed during his official visit to Pitt two weeks ago and then announced the commitment last Sunday. He picked the Panthers over Auburn, Boston College, Cincinnati, Florida State, Georgia Tech, LSU, Louisville, Maryland, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma and UCF.
That’s the kind of offer sheet you want to see Pitt winning against on the recruiting trail. Sure, you’d like every recruit to choose the Panthers over Alabama and Ohio State, but that’s not usually the case.
Beating schools like Auburn and LSU and Florida State and Oklahoma - schools that are a step down from the elite tier but still pretty high on the food chain - that’s what you want to see. Those are the battles you want to win.
And Pitt won it with Holmes.
He had planned to take an official visit to Auburn the week after his Pitt visit, but the Panthers did well enough while he was on campus that he canceled that visit and made his commitment.
To be honest, I’m still kind of shocked by it.
Holmes is a big-time get for Pitt. He’s not ranked as a four-star recruit on Rivals, but he’s just outside that range and there’s only one offensive guard prospect between him and the four-stars (there are 13 four-star guards; Holmes is ranked No. 15).
A not-unimportant part of this discussion - as well as the significance of Holmes’ commitment - is that Pitt hasn’t really made a habit of getting big-time offensive linemen. Ryan Baer was Pat Narduzzi’s best O-line commitment, and there were some solid pickups along the way, but Holmes stands out right behind Baer.
Obviously guys like Carter Warren and Matt Goncalves and Jake Kradel have turned into really good linemen, and there have been other prospects who had Power Five offers. But from where I sit, there’s Baer and there’s Holmes and then there’s everybody else.
I really think his commitment is that big of a deal.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
How many defensive backs are enough?
After eight or nine years, we can probably say that, for Pat Narduzzi, there’s never enough defensive backs.
It certainly seems to be the approach this offseason.
As it stands right now, Pitt has received public commitments from five defensive back prospects:
Tayshawn Banks
Allen Bryant
Chasen Johnson
Nigel Maynard
Davion Pritchard
That’s a lot, but there’s a pretty good chance that there’s at least one more out there among the unannounced commits. Is six too many? Seems like it might be, but the coaching staff didn’t really slow down after the first three or four commits, so they are obviously operating with the intention of signing a big class of DBs.
Do they need it?
That’s the next question, and while my first reaction to all the commits was that it was unnecessary, the more I looked at the roster, the more I understand what Archie Collins, Cory Sanders and the rest are going for.
Pitt’s got a good group of corners for the coming season, but M.J. Devonshire, Marquis Williams and A.J. Woods are all seniors; Williams and Woods are out of eligibility after 2023, and while Devonshire could come back in 2024, I’m guessing he won’t.
There’s good potential in the underclassmen with guys like Rashad Battle, Noah Biglow, Tamarion Crumpley and Ryland Gandy, but Battle only has a year or two left and the others will run out of eligibility in the next few years.
Throw in the fact that the last three recruiting classes have produced a total of four corners, and you can see how they could run out of bodies real fast.
Safety is a little deeper with underclassmen, but there’s still a timeline heading toward zero there, too. There are three junior-eligible safeties in Buddy Mack, Donovan McMillon and P.J. O’Brien, two sophomore-eligible guys in Stephon Hall and Javon McIntyre and two freshmen in Jesse Anderson and Cruce Brookins.
That’s not a bad setup for 2023, but if one or two guys transfer and one or two guys leave early - maybe after the 2024 season - they’ll run out of safeties pretty quickly.
So it makes sense to reload, and this is a good time to do it. Pitt has a lot of available scholarships in the 2024 recruiting class, giving the coaches room to take a bunch of defensive backs. And the Panthers have had five defensive backs drafted in the last three years, which has to help raise the program’s profile with prospects at those positions. Throw in the team success - 20 wins in two years, ACC Championship, etc. - and you’ve got a perfect storm for the coaching staff to restock the corners and safeties.
They’ve got five now and will probably try to get one or two more which, after inevitable attrition, will likely end up being a six-man class.
Are any other spots filling up?
Defensive back may be close to filling up, but what about the rest of the positions in the class? Have the Pitt coaches hit the quota on any other spots?
In a word, no.
So that wraps that one up. Let’s move on to the prediction section of the column.
Okay, we’ll elaborate a little bit, but the long and short of it is this:
The Pitt coaches are gearing up for a big recruiting class this year. That means they can go deep on a lot of positions - all of them, really - and reload across the roster.
They’ll only take one quarterback, of course (we could have a separate discussion about the merits of two-quarterback classes, but from where I sit, there’s just not a lot of reason to do it in the portal era).
Other than quarterback, though, I think the staff aims for multiple signings at every spot. Even traditional one-commit positions like running back or tight end - we’ve seen ample evidence that the Pitt coaches would like two at both of those positions. To wit, they’ve got Juelz Goff and Eric Ingwerson committed and they just hosted Yasin Willis and Cameron Clark.
I don’t think that was a matter of trying to get insurance against a decommit; it was born of the desire to take two backs and two tight ends.
And those are two positions where the coaches would typically only sign one. At spots where the target numbers are usually three or more, they’re aiming even higher.
Offensive line is a good example. Pitt’s got four linemen in the class already, but there are multiple linemen scheduled to take official visits on the final weekend of June plus one or two guys still hanging around as possible commits from the first visit weekend.
The defensive line is a similar situation. Four linemen have committed, but there’s no reason to think Pitt won’t try to get at least two more.
Pitt’s got two receivers committed but there’s no reason to think the staff will stop there. Even after signing four receivers in the 2023 class, the Panthers need more restocking in that room, and they’ve currently got more receiver targets set to visit next week.
On top of that, we already talked about how linebacker, cornerback and safety look like they’re heading for big classes.
That’s pretty much every position.
So if the question is, “Are any other spots filling up?” The answer is no.
Now, maybe by the end of June, it will be a different story. Pitt should have at least a quarterback by then, which would take care of that position. And maybe one or two other spots will be full, too.
But for now, it’s all still open.
ONE PREDICTION
The next two weeks will be interesting on the quarterback front
Not exactly a hot-take bold prediction there, but it’s the most I can do right now because I’m not entirely sure what’s going to happen.
Pitt is basically down to two quarterback targets in the class of 2024. The number was five at one point not too long ago, but Tyler Cherry committed to Duke, Miles O’Neill committed to Texas A&M and the staff seemingly stopped recruiting Drew Devillier.
That leaves two men standing:
Trever Jackson
Henry Hasselbeck
Jackson is a high three-star prospect from West Orange high school in Winter Garden, Fla., and he’s currently impressing at the Elite 11 finals in California. He has been on the coaching staff’s radar since last June when he put on a show at their prospect camp, and he has emerged as one of Pitt’s top quarterback targets in the class.
Hasselbeck has gotten a lot of recognition for his last name - his father is former NFL quarterback Matt Hasselbeck - but that shouldn’t overshadow his athleticism: he’s a sprinter in indoor track and, more notably, he’s a Maryland lacrosse commit.
You’re not getting recruiting to play lacrosse at Maryland if you’re a statue, and it’s a pretty big credit to Hasselbeck to have that interest from the Terrapins.
Hasselbeck has taken official visits to Michigan State and Boston College already, and he’ll go to UAB during the week next week before visiting Pitt on the final weekend of the month.
I think Pitt offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti likes Hasselbeck a lot and would be glad to have him in the class, but I’m not entirely sure if he would prefer Hasselbeck over Jackson, whose situation got a lot more interesting this week when he received an offer from Miami.
That development may-or-may-not-be-but-probably-is connected to his decision to cancel the official visit he had scheduled to Missouri next weekend.
Jackson hasn’t said so publicly - that I’ve seen - but my guess is he’ll be visiting the Hurricanes instead.
That’s something to watch, of course. Winter Garden isn’t exactly South Beach - it will take Jackson more than three hours to drive to Miami for his visit - but it’s close enough to say geography is working in Miami’s favor here. At the same time, the Hurricanes already have one quarterback committed in the 2024 recruiting class in Gray (Ga.) Jones County three-star Judd Anderson. Pitt does not have a quarterback committed, so pushing the idea of being the only quarterback in the class vs. being one of two is an angle that Cignetti and company will be working hard over the next week-plus.
Back to my prediction, then: with Hasselbeck set to visit Pitt next weekend and Jackson’s visit plans yet to be made, these next two weeks are going to be really interesting - and they’ll probably determine the fate of Pitt’s quarterback recruiting in the class of 2024.
