The 3-2-1 Column: Decommits, recruiting flips, WPIAL success and more

MORE HEADLINES -Video: Heather Lyke on football's return, Pitt's protocols and more | A look back: Recruits who flipped to Pitt | PODCAST: A look at decommitments | A look back: Recruits who decommitted from Pitt | 2022 Missouri TE adds Pitt offer | PODCAST: A conversation with Central Catholic head coach Terry Totten

In this week’s 3-2-1 Column we’re thinking about the challenges for college football, decommitments, flips, some big names in the WPIAL and more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

College is different
In the ongoing cycle of optimism and pessimism regarding the prospects of a college football season in 2020, I’m starting to trend up a little bit.

There’s a growing sense of resolve, it seems, in some of the public comments we’ve gotten from college football officials in recent days. They’re not being defiant, necessarily, but they seem more and more intent on finding a way to make a season happen, and that’s good.

There’s also the return of the pro sports leagues. Major League Baseball back, the NBA will start its eight-game conclusion to the regular season next Thursday and the NHL’s 24-team tournament will start next Saturday.

That’s all very encouraging. It will be even more encouraging when those leagues move through the next month without any major outbreaks or spikes. And if things proceed safely on the professional front, there will be a greater push for college football to return.

But there’s a key difference in there, a big point of separation that puts college football at one end of a spectrum and those professional sports leagues at the other.

The difference is that there is a lot more achievable control in the pro leagues. Like the NBA, where the entire league is playing in a bubble at Disney World. Or the NHL, which is using hub cities for its tournament.

Those are two really strong and definable plans for keeping the players and coaches and everyone else separate from any unnecessary contact, which should minimize exposure and potential spread.

The problem is, you can’t put college football players in a bubble and you can’t ship them off to hub cities. They’re college students, first and foremost; by definition, they’re going to be in the college environment, which is a petri dish of communicable disease during the best of circumstances, and these, as you may have heard, are not the best of circumstances.

At a time when there is still uncertainty about whether college itself will actually happen in the traditional sense with in-person classes, it seems to me that there are a lot of questions to answer before we get too excited about a college football season.

Major League Baseball will be an interesting comparison to watch. Unlike the NBA and the NHL, MLB isn’t using a bubble or putting everyone in hub cities. The league created a 60-game schedule aimed at mitigating travel; I’m not sure what restrictions will be on player movement - are they confined to a hotel? - but I have to think that they will be confined more than college kids.

I just don’t think it’s viable to expect to keep college students in their dorms or residences every hour of the day when they’re not in class or at practice. They’re going to get out, they’re going to interact with other students and they’re going to risk exposure.

So the returns of the pro sports leagues are encouraging, but I can only go so far with that encouragement. The colleges are going to have to find their own way to make this work because they've got their own challenges.

Some names from the past
In the wake of Trevion Stevenson’s decommitment last week, I started thinking about the guys who got away and I wrote about Pitt's recent history of decommitments. In the last six classes (2015-20), there were 17 recruits who committed to Pitt but ended up signing with another school.

While it seems like a lot to average almost three per class, there’s some context to add. Five of those 17 all happened in the 2015 class, and four of those five were recruits who had committed to Paul Chryst but switched to another school in the wake of the coaching change that December.

And even those four weren’t all just a product of the coaching change; Nick Bowers and Kevin Givens were probably always going to end up at Penn State as long as they got the opportunity (regardless of who was the head coach at Pitt).

That leaves 12 decommits over the last five classes, and all 12 of those were recruits who committed to Pat Narduzzi’s staff and then left for a different school. But again, there’s context. Pitt let JUCO receiver Juwann Winfree go in the 2016 class over character concerns and had a mutual parting of ways with 2018 tight end Matt Alaimo. A year later, they backed away from West Virginia offensive lineman Nick Malone, and in the 2020 class, Pitt opted not to sign defensive tackle Timothy Brown after he was arrested in the fall of his senior year.

So when you cut it down to the recruits that the Pitt coaches genuinely wanted to keep, it’s really a small group. I think the staff would like to have held onto Khadry Jackson and Brandon Mack in the 2019 class, and certainly 2020 prospect Henry Parrish would be a nice boost to the running back room.

We’ll talk more about the decommitments that Pitt will miss - or has missed - the most in a minute, but overall, I think this staff has done a pretty good job keeping guys in the fold once they commit. Part of that is Narduzzi’s emphasis at the time of commitment that he expects the recruits to shut things down with other schools. Mostly, though, I think it’s just good, old-fashioned relationships. Narduzzi and the rest of his staff do a pretty good job of building strong relationships with the recruits, and I think that goes a long way - the longest way - in getting kids to stay committed, even when other schools come calling.

Look at Jordan Addison last year or Michael Smith in the 2017 class or Chase Pine in the 2016 class; these guys all had strong interest from other schools late in the recruiting process, and all three stuck with Pitt.

That said, I do think that changes in recruiting will probably make decommitments a little more common than they have been. Starting with the 2019 class, recruits have been able to take spring official visits and the Pitt staff has capitalized on those opportunities by getting a ton of June commitments as a result of those official visits.

That’s all well and good, but then November and December roll around; other schools convince some of those recruits to take official visits and before you know it, you’ve got a few decommitments on your hands.

That’s going to happen. Maybe not as much this year since Pitt can still bring in all the current commits on official visits later in the recruiting cycle. But it certainly happened the last couple years and it will likely happen more in the future.

The one to get back
When you look at those 17 recruits who decommitted from Pitt over the course of six classes, it’s pretty clear that the Panthers didn’t lose too much. Sure, there were some players who went on to have solid careers, and the book is still being written on more recent guys like Khadry Jackson and Brandon Mack. But overall, there weren’t too many can’t-miss studs who flipped away from Pitt.

A few of them could have helped, though. Like Nick Bowers; no, the former Kittaning product didn’t do a whole lot at Penn State, but it’s tough to imagine him doing less than what Pitt’s tight ends did in the years Bowers would have been eligible.

We’ve talked about it plenty of times: the tight end position has been a black hole at Pitt since Scott Orndoff graduated after the 2016 season. Bowers would have been a redshirt sophomore in 2017, so he likely would have been coming into his own; that would have been a nice option to have.

But if I had to pick one player from those decommitments to add to Pitt’s roster, I don’t know if he’s the one I would pick. I mentioned Khadry Jackson: I think he’s going to be pretty good in college, and while I really like Pitt’s linebacker recruiting in the 2019 and especially the 2020 classes, he would be a really good addition.

Still, I’m not sure I would pick him. The lost recruit I would pick just might be Alex Hornibrook. Remember, he committed to Paul Chryst in the summer of 2014 and had communication with Pat Narduzzi after he was hired to replace Chryst that December.

Hornibrook ultimately went to Wisconsin with Chryst, leaving Pitt without a quarterback in the class of 2015. Narduzzi and offensive coordinator Jim Chaney were working on getting Nathan Peterman as a graduate transfer from Tennessee, but they wanted someone for the future, too, and they ended up signing Ben DiNucci out of Pine-Richland.

We know what happened after Signing Day 2015. Peterman was a good starter for Pitt in 2015 and 2016, but 2017 was a disaster on many levels - chiefly at quarterback, as DiNucci and Max Browne moved in and out of the starting job until Browne suffered a season-ending injury.

Kenny Pickett eventually replaced DiNucci as the starter for the season finale and won that game in spectacular fashion, but what if Hornibrook had been Pitt’s quarterback in 2017? He would have been a redshirt sophomore by then - older than DiNucci and Pickett - and he was pretty good at Wisconsin that season, throwing for 2,644 yards, 25 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.

Now, he benefited from having a really good offensive line and a stout running game, of course. And the ultimate verdict on Hornibrook has been that he’s an effective game-manager but not much more.

Still, what would Pitt’s record have been in 2017 (and 2018, for that matter) if the Panthers had Hornibrook at quarterback? Would they have done better than 5-7? It seems possible, if not outright likely.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Who’s the best flip in Pitt’s favor?
Of course, while Pitt has lost some recruits to other schools over the last five or six years, the Panthers have also added plenty. I said earlier that 17 recruits in the last six classes have been committed to Pitt but didn’t sign with the Panthers (for a variety of reasons). Well, here’s another number to consider:

In the last five classes - five, not six - Pitt has signed 27 recruits who were, at one point, committed to other schools. That’s not including transfers or anything like that: just recruits who were committed to one school but signed with Pitt.

That’s an average of better than five per year, but here again, we should offer some context. Because the truth is, Pitt’s staff was really good at getting those flips in the early years of the Narduzzi era.

The Panthers’ class of 2016, for instance, featured eight recruits who had previously been committed to other schools. The class of 2017 had six and the class of 2018 had five. That’s 19 of the aforementioned 26 flips.

(No, not all of them were flips, but we’re using shorthand here because we’re into the whole brevity thing.)

While the numbers have dropped a bit in the last two classes, it’s hard to deny the impact of the players who flipped in Narduzzi’s first three full classes. Phil Campbell (Rutgers), Rashad Weaver (Michigan), Amir Watts (Western Michigan), Keyshon Camp (USC), Damarri Mathis (South Carolina), Jason Pinnock (Boston College), Deslin Alexandre (N.C. State), Kenny Pickett (Temple), Habakkuk Baldonado (Coastal Carolina) and Shocky Jacques-Louis (Tennessee) were all committed to other programs.

That’s an impressive list, and includes probably eight starters from the projected 2020 two-deep.

I thought I would pick one guy for this section of the column and say, “That was the best player to sign with Pitt after being committed to another school,” but it’s a lot tougher than I expected. Do I pick the three-year starter at quarterback? One of the two starting corners? A starting defensive lineman? There are a lot of options.

I might have to go with Pickett. He originally committed to Temple but then reopened his recruitment and picked Pitt in June 2016. Part of the reason for picking him is that I don’t know who Pitt would have gotten in that class otherwise. I thought the Panthers had a good chance with Hendon Hooker, but he committed to Virginia Tech that March (and beat Pitt last fall). Kingsley Ifedi was an interesting guy; he picked ECU due to some family connections (he has since transferred to North Carolina A&T and isn’t doing much).

I was also intrigued by Darriel Mack Jr. I think Pitt backed off recruiting him after getting Pickett. He ended up going to UCF.

So Pickett was a pretty good option for Pitt, and if I had to pick one of those “flips” as the best…would I pick him? Over Weaver or one of the corners? I guess I might lean to the quarterback, but not by a lot.

Will this be Pitt’s best WPIAL class in a decade?
This column will publish on Friday morning, so it comes out before the big news of the day, which will be Central Catholic four-star defensive lineman Elliot Donald announcing his commitment.

We’ve said for a long time that we’re expecting Pitt to be the selection here, and as of this writing on Thursday night, I haven’t heard anything different. I still expect Donald to pick Pitt.

If that does happen, the impact would be considerable. Right off the bat, it would move the Panthers’ 2021 recruiting class from No. 34 to No. 26 in the Rivals.com national rankings. Donald would be the highest-ranked recruit in Pitt’s class and give the Panthers a pair of four-star prospects among the 18 commitments they would have with him on board.

But it would also be one step closer to something that I think is on the verge of happening.

I think Pitt could be in line for its best class of WPIAL recruits since 2016.

That year - Narduzzi’s first full recruiting class - saw the Panthers land six out of the top 10 recruits in western Pennsylvania, with a pair of four-stars in Damar Hamlin and Kaezon Pugh to go with Therran Coleman, Aaron Mathews, Rashad Wheeler and Brandon Ford.

This year, I’m thinking Pitt has a legitimate chance to get five out of the top 10 prospects in western Pa. They’ve already got West Mifflin defensive end Nahki Johnson and Central Valley safety Stephon Hall and I think they’ll get Elliot Donald today. Then I also like Pitt’s chances with Baldwin lineman Dorien Ford and North Allegheny tight end Khalil Dinkins.

Get those five guys, and you’ve got a WPIAL class that rivals the 2016 group.

Really, you could probably make a case that the 2013 class, with Dorian Johnson, Tyler Boyd and Scott Orndoff, packs a more powerful punch than the 2016 class; either way, I would put this (potential) 2021 group up against 2013. I think it can be that good.

In particular, getting Johnson, Donald and Ford would give Pitt a clean sweep on the best class of WPIAL defensive linemen since 2006 (Jason Pinkston, Justin Hargrove and John Malecki). That’s a pretty good bar to set, too.

What it comes down to is landing the local talent when it’s there to be had. Pitt is never going to get all the top WPIAL players; the area is too heavily-recruited for that to happen (it’s a common myth that Dave Wannstedt got all the top local players - he missed on plenty). But when there is a good amount of talent like there is this year, the Panthers have to get their fair share.

Chances are, they won’t land Gateway four-star Derrick Davis. But if they get the rest of the group - Johnson, Hall, Donald, Ford and Dinkins - that would be plenty good and quite possibly the best we’ve seen from Pitt’s local recruiting efforts in a long time.

ONE PREDICTION

Sticking to sports is going to continue to be tough
It’s a common refrain:

Stick to sports

We hear that all the time, and I attribute a lot of it to social media: we hear people in sports talk about things other than sports, and we hear other people tell those people that they need to stick to sports.

Usually - not always but usually - the person saying “Stick to sports” is saying it because they are of a different opinion from the sports person who is straying into political topics, but that’s another conversation for another day.

What I want to say at the close of this column today is that I don’t think it’s going to be possible to stick to sports as we move over the course of the next six months. This is especially true regarding college sports, where the questions of where, when and how much college sports get played are still very much up in the air.

And once you get into that discussion, it’s pretty easy to veer out of sports altogether and into something different. Think about it this way:

Imagine that Point A is a discussion about Pitt football in 2020. That’s a sports discussion, through and through. We can talk about the defensive line and the secondary and the third-year starter at quarterback and the returning offensive coordinator and on and on. There’s lots to talk about in that very-much-sports conversation.

But it’s not hard to get to Point B, which is the lurking fear that this Pitt team, which should conceivably be set up to win 10+ games, might not get an opportunity to play that many games - if a season happens at all.

Then the disappointment from that possibility leads to Point C, where we start asking who is to blame for the pandemic reaching the levels it has reached. Whose fault is it that we haven’t handled this situation better in the last five months and we might lose college football as a result? Who is responsible for that?

And that gets us to Point D.

You know what Point D is.

It doesn’t matter which side of the aisle you’re on: Point D is the point where you stand up on your side of the aisle and start talking down about the other side. And just like that, in a very natural, organic progression, we’ve gone from a purely sports discussion to something that is outside the realm of sports.

But you saw how easily we got there. You saw how smoothly we moved from Point A to Point D. You saw how natural it was to start off talking about Pitt’s potential in 2020 and end up discussing the government’s response to a pandemic.

That’s why, even when we try to stick to sports, it’s going to be tough. There are just too many connections.