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In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, it’s June and that means it is official visit season for the Pitt football program. We talk all about the 14 visitors in town this weekend and what they are doing while they are in Pittsburgh. The basketball team also snuck in official visit with a junior college prospect this week as well, and the baseball team had another tough end to a once promising season.
Plenty to discuss, as usual.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
The current roster looks like this:
I think before you can really dig into the big recruiting weekend, it is worth taking a look at how the current roster looks as of today in order to get a working number for the class of 2023. Pitt currently is up to 83 scholarship players for the 2022 season following the commitment of Georgia Tech transfer Dylan Deveney late last month. There is a chance Pitt adds one more player before the start of next season, and it is likely a walk-on or two will get those final two spots to get to the 85-man limit.
Looking at those current 83 players, 25 of those are seniors. Now of course that does not necessarily mean all 25 of those players will be moving on following this season. Remember, the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to any player that played through the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The uncertainty of that particular season has created issues of roster management across college football that will still be felt for years to come.
Pitt has six ‘super seniors’ for this upcoming season, and those players will be totally out of eligibility. The other 19 seniors technically could return for another year, but the smart money on that is only a few of them may take that opportunity. We know the transfer portal will likely impact roster numbers, and there are some draft eligible underclassmen that will likely move on after this season with a strong showing.
Pitt will get the number of roster spots it needs to fill out this class one way or another. It usually tends to work itself out in the end. It usually always does.
Pitt only signed 12 players in the class of 2022, but also managed to bring along seven transfers as well in Kedon Slovis, Bub Means, Konata Mumpfield, Karter Johnson, Dylan Deveney, Shayne Simon, and Tylar Wiltz.
When looking at how Pitt is approaching this current recruiting cycle, it’s fair to assume this class will be much larger than 12 players. The staff has offered roughly 375 players in the class of 2023. Over 30 of those players are taking official visits throughout the month, and this class should get to the 22-24 man range when it is all said and done.
Now looking at it position wise, there are some areas that need addressed more than others. The quarterback room took some hits with transfers, but the staff has already secured a commitment from Kenny Minchey. Pitt has 15 scholarship linemen, but with six seniors, that position will need addressed as well. The staff has a heavy crop of defensive linemen set to visit. The linebacker room is upperclassmen heavy, and there appears to be an emphasis on the secondary as well. There are a lot of needs in order to replenish the roster and even with a lot of the roster management being unclear, the Pitt coaches should have no trouble signing over 20 players for the class of 2023.
The basketball program hosted an official visitor as well
The month of June signals to Pitt fans a busy month on the recruiting trail for Pat Narduzzi and his staff, but it was Jeff Capel to host the first visitor of the month. It had broke late on Wednesday evening that Cashius McNeilly wrapped up an official visit to Pitt during the week. McNeilly is out of the junior college ranks and played this past season Northern Oklahoma-Tonkawa, the same junior college that produced Fede Federiko, one of the newcomers to this year's basketball team.
The backstory on McNeilly goes a little further than that, though. He was a four-star recruit in the class of 2019 out of Ontario and signed with Texas A&M. He took a redshirt in his first season, and opted out due to the pandemic in his second year. From there he actually started this past school year with Jamie Dixon at TCU, but never suited for the Horned Frogs and moved to Northern Oklahoma.
McNeilly actually committed to play for Maryland earlier this year, but with the coaching change in College Park, he has reopened his recruitment and took an official visit to Pitt this week. So if you are keeping track, he has attended two power-five schools, was committed to another one, spent a year at a junior college, and has yet to play in a Division-1 game at this point in his career.
McNeilly would have three years of eligibility at his next stop. He averaged 10 points per game this past season and shot 43% from three-point range in 12 games. He is a well traveled player for sure, but was also once a four-star recruit.
Capel and his staff have 11 players set for this upcoming season, meaning there are two more roster spots available. McNeilly is a name to watch, as is Seikou Sisoho Jawara, a transfer from Weber State who visited previously this spring. There are likely a few other names in the mix, but with two roster spots it is getting to be a bit more selective. We’ll see what comes of this new visitor, but it’s an intriguing name for sure. Pitt has multiple guards on the roster: Nelly Cummings, Nike Sibande, Jamrius Burton, and Greg Elliott. Given some of the youth and inexperience in the front court, Capel may have to turn towards more three, even four guard lineups at times and McNeilly could potentially be another option to bolster that strategy.
In addition to this news, Panther-Lair’s Houston Wilson confirmed with 2023 four-star guard Jaylen Curry that he will be taking an official visit later this summer. Don’t forget, Pitt’s 2023 class is off to a strong start with top-100 prospect Marlon Barnes already committed. So while the football program will garner most of the attention this month, but the basketball team has a few things working as well.
Another disappointing end to the baseball season
The NCAA Tournament for college baseball will be going on all weekend, and it will be another year Pitt is not in the field. Pitt wrapped up its season last Saturday with an 8-3 loss to NC State in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament. That defeat came after a bit of mid-week magic. Mike Bell’s squad upset a pair of tournament teams in Georgia Tech and Louisville to advance out of pool play and into the weekend’s final four. Given Pitt’s RPI, the team's only real option to make the tournament was to win both games over the weekend, which they were unable to do.
Let’s not forget on May 8th, Pitt took game one of a double header against Duke to notch its fifth ACC series win of the season. The Panthers held a 26-18 overall record and a 12-10 mark in ACC play, but it all went south from there. Pitt proceeded to lose the second half of that double header that day, and eight of final nine regular season games overall, including a three-game sweep at home against Georgia Tech to close out the year.
It was reminiscent of last year’s late season collapse as well. The Panthers lost eight of nine to end last season. Both years Pitt looked poised to be in position to make the NCAA Tournament throughout much of the season, but the swoons at the end of the season coupled with some bad non-conference losses throughout the year took its toll on the resume.
Mike Bell’s inaugural season ended with a 21-34 record in 2019. The team only won eight conference games that year. The 2020 season was cut short due to COVID, but Pitt had a 10-6 record. In each of the past two years, Pitt ended the year with a winning record and claimed 29 conference wins during that span. There is no doubt the program is trending in the right direction overall, but there are things to clean up, like avoiding losing games to the likes of North Carolina A&T and Oakland late in the year.
It will be interesting to see how the dust settles following June’s MLB Draft and what that does to Pitt’s roster. The Panthers will likely be losing their top 1-2 punch in the rotation with Matt Gilbertson and Billy Corcoran. Ron Washington Jr. is out of eligibility. But what about a guy like Tatem Levins? He had a strong year and could leave with the right draft position. There will be a new look to the team, but what Bell and his staff have proven is that they have been resourceful in the transfer portal with Levins and Jeffrey Wehler. There are some good young pieces like pitcher Jonathan Bautista and infielder Tommy Tavarez hanging around the program.
College baseball is a tough world to crack into the elite, especially for a Northern team in one of the top conferences in the country. Pitt is always going to be at disadvantage from its recruiting territories to facilities as opposed to many of its peers in the ACC, but it feels like this program is close to breaking through to a degree. Bell is getting the team to the bubble, and the next step is finding itself on the right side of it for the first time since 1995.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
What exactly is going on this month and weekend?
I stop and realize sometimes when Chris Peak and I talk about certain recruiting things in these columns, we speak in terms that everyone might not be familiar with and we can tend to ramble on and on about it without presenting context. So I want to step back and make everyone familiar with what is happening this month and why we are making such a big deal about it.
Simply put: June is a really, really big month in the recruiting calendar, particularly for Pitt.
The Pitt coaching staff likes to operate this way and handle the bulk of their recruiting for the entire year in this month. The staff does not like to host these official visits during the season, because they are focused on game preparation and can’t be with the players for the entire time. Sometimes schedules work out differently for particular recruits, but if the staff can help it, they want these visits to happen in the summer.
There is a lot going on in June and here is sort of a refresher for how it all works. A few years back, the NCAA allowed for schools to host prospects for official visits in the summer months. What is an official visit? It is when a recruit can come town with his parents or guardians and it is paid for all the way through by the school. If a player is in Pittsburgh on an official visit, there is plenty of mutual interest between the school and player and they are candidates to commit to Pitt really at any time. These are the players the coaching staff really wants.
The staff flies the prospects and their families to town, and shows them everything Pitt and the city of Pittsburgh has to offer in a little over 48 hours. They will get to see the practice facility in the Southside and try on uniforms and maybe bump into a few of the Steelers while they are there. They will see the campus, dorms, and meet with academic advisors. The staff will take them out to a nice dinner, show them Heinz Field, and give them the best possible time they can. The prospective recruits also get to meet and interact with the current players throughout the entire trip. The visits take place over three days. For instance, players got to town on Thursday, the bulk of the visit will happen today, and on Saturday morning they will typically meet with Pat Narduzzi before leaving town.
Pitt is conducting three of these big official visit weekends this month: this weekend, June 16, and June 24. Not every school operates the same way, but that is typically how Pitt has done it in recent years.
Aside from official visits, the Pitt coaches will be hosting prospect camps. Again, what is a prospect camp? High school recruits that typically don’t have an offer from Pitt are coming to town to try to earn one. In addition to the Pitt coaches, smaller schools come to town to get a glimpse of the same players. For instance, coaches from Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan, Navy, Marshall and Toledo will be at Pitt this Sunday, along with many regional FCS and Division II and III programs. It is a big deal for high school players to get a chance to work out in front of and work with these coaches in a hands-on setting. It creates more scholarship opportunities they might not normally get with just their high school film out there. These camps will take place this Sunday, June 11-12, and also on June 26th.
Throughout June there will also be plenty of ‘unofficial’ visits, which means the player and their families are in town on their own dime. They won’t be taken out to dinner or given transportation to Pittsburgh, but they can stop by the practice facility, meet with the coaches, take a bit of a tour around town, and see if returning for an official visit is something in the cards. Unofficial visits happen throughout the year, really they are whenever these players can make the time to come to town. There are no set dates like the official visits and camps, it’s really whenever the schedule allows for it to happen and those will happen all month long.
We tend to hype up June a lot here at Panther-Lair.com, and I’m not sure everyone always understands the significance of why we are doing that. There are plenty of die-hard Pitt fans that track this kind of thing year round, but I realize not everyone is hanging out on our message boards daily and is well versed in every single prospect the staff is recruiting. So I hope this paints a better picture of what is going on throughout the month of June.
What is the most impressive position group Pitt is recruiting right now?
Now that you know what an official visit is, we can talk about some of the players taking them. There are 14 players that Pitt is bringing to town this weekend and here is of course a rundown of who is here right now. But there are plenty of players set to take them later this month, and truthfully it is a pretty impressive list put together by the Pitt coaches.
This will be my fifth year on the job here at Panther-Lair.com and this will be the best collection of players I have personally seen on campus during my time here. Of course, now it is a matter of Pitt landing their commitments and getting them to sign in December. There are new challenges in making all that happen with the Name, Image, and Likeness craze sweeping over the sport. But what areas are the staff doing the best with right now? Here are a few spots that really caught my eye.
Wide Receiver
The top player Pitt is recruiting is Hykeem Williams, the nation’s 36th ranked prospect according to Rivals. That alone makes Pitt’s wide receiver recruiting pretty special. Of course, the competition for Williams is fierce with Texas A&M and Georgia seemingly right there, but getting him to come to campus is noteworthy. That visit is happening on the 24th, but this weekend they are hosting Kenny Johnson. He is a three-star from York, PA and this will be the first of four visits scheduled with Penn State, Rutgers, and West Virginia also set to host him later this month. Pitt is also playing host this weekend to Zion Fowler, a player already committed to the Panthers. Fowler is a very athletic playmaker from New Jersey and has been committed since October. Not on the books quite yet is Justin Brown, but he is a four-star from Tennessee that seems very interested in the Panthers. Tastean Reddicks is another player that is a candidate to visit.
Defensive Line
Pitt has developed a reputation of having one of the fiercest pass rushes in all of college football. Charlie Partridge has done a great job of developing some great players, and recruits are noticing. The group of defensive linemen visiting this month only reinforces that. Currently nine defensive linemen are visiting this month, including five this weekend.
This weekend is headlined by Jalen Thompson, a 6’4” and 245-pound defensive end with over 30 offers. He is the third-ranked player in the state of Michigan and is one of the top 200 prospects overall nationally. Also in town will be a trio of Florida prospects, Partridge’s home state. Calvin Smith is a lengthy defensive end with 24 scholarship offers. DeeJay Holmes a ferocious pass rusher from Pahokee High School and was the defensive player of the year in his area as a junior. Antonio Camon is from the Tampa area, and while listed as a defensive end, he will likely play defensive tackle at the next level. He has 24 offers to his name as well. Isaiah Neal of Baltimore is also set to be in town. He has 17 offers and is out of prep powerhouse St. Frances. Neal has been to Pitt earlier this year. He also has official visit booked to NC State and Rutgers.
Later this month, Pitt is expected to host four-star Desmond Umeozulu out of Maryland. Also coming to town are a pair of interior linemen one from Georgia: Stantavious Smith and out of Florida: Guerlens Milfort. Also expected to visit is under-the-radar defensive end from Miami: Toddrick Brewton.
Given Pitt’s pedigree with the position, it’s no surprise there is a strong group of defensive linemen coming to town this month.
Cornerback
Pitt has had a cornerback drafted in each of the past three years, and there are a strong group of corners set to visit in the coming weeks. Starting this weekend, Pitt will play host to Brice Pollock, a talented three-star from Georgia. He has official visits for Michigan State and North Carolina scheduled as well.
For the June 16th weekend, it will be highlighted by four-star Braeden Marshall along with Georgia three-star Kaleb Cost, who will be making his second trip to Pittsburgh this year. Marshall has over 30 offers and additional visits planned for UCF, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Cost will be in North Carolina this weekend, while Georgia Tech, Mississippi State, and UCF round out his top five.
The last weekend of official visits features four-star Antonio Robinson out of Miami. He has 30 scholarship offers. Fellow Floridian Nate Johnson will be here, along with Ohio three-star Jermaine Mathews.
As expected, Pitt is recruiting a lot of cornerbacks this cycle, and many of them are really good prospects.
ONE PREDICTION
Pitt lands three commitments from this weekend’s visitors
I’m not saying it will happen Friday night, or first thing Saturday morning, but I’m thinking we will see at least three commitments before the weekend ends with these 14 visitors on campus. Of course two of them are already committed: Zion Fowler and quarterback Kenny Minchey, so that leaves 12 more. I think it may be tough to pry Cincinnati commit Jackson McGohan away from his commitment right on the spot, but I do think there are some good candidates.
Shadarian Harrison is a safety from Florida. He’s sort of floated under the radar, but he has 19 offers and Pitt is his only visit planned to date. Georgia athlete Javious Bond is another player that only has one visit on the books. Same with Florida defensive ends Calvin Smith and DeeJay Holmes.
Of course that’s not to say Pitt couldn’t wow guys like Isiah Neal or Antonio Camon either. Official visits can be unpredictable and you never know who gets that feeling to make a commitment while they are on them.
Again, I do want to make mention of the NIL. It is a part of recruiting now, and you might not see as many of the on-the-spot commitments like you have in the past, but they will still happen. Recruits are going to take a look at all their options now especially with NIL in mind, maybe more than in the past, but that's not to say instant commitments can't or won't happen either.
I'm putting the number at 2.5 commitments from this weekend's group of visitors, and I am taking the over.
