The 3-2-1 Column: Recruiting help, versatility, offers, surprises and more
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We’ve got recruiting on the brain this week as we look at three things we know, two questions we have and one observation.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
Not all recruiters wear headsets
The topic is a common one on places like the Panther-Lair.com message boards:
Recruiting acumen - Who has it? Who doesn’t? Who’s the best recruiter on the staff? Who needs to step up his game? And if there’s a new hire, how good of a recruiter is he?
But there’s more to the recruiting game that just coaches. Coaches are a big part of it, but they’re supported and complemented by a lot of people, whether it’s the recruiting staff that is tasked with making sure all of the details are covered from day-to-day interactions to planning for officials or it’s the academic and Life Skills administrators whose job it is to show the recruits - and their families - how well they’ll be taken care of if they go to Pitt.
It’s all part of a machine - the recruiting machine - and a successful recruitment that ends in a solid commitment is the culmination of all of those elements working at a high level.
But there’s another element, another group of people who play a significant role in recruiting. And that’s the players. I think we sometimes underestimate the impact that players on the current roster can have in recruiting.
In almost every commitment Pitt got from last weekend’s official visits, the recruit said that he felt comfortable at Pitt, felt like he was at home. And in almost every instance, the players deserve a ton of credit for making the recruit feel that way.
On these visits, it’s up to the players to show the recruits what life on campus is really like, which can ultimately be the deciding factor. Recruits want to find a place to call home for three or four or five years, and while all of the other things they see on an official visit have an impact, the experiences of campus life can be the biggest factor.
That’s where the players come in, and a few guys have shown themselves to be particularly adept at accomplishing that. Bricen Garner, Damar Hamlin and Paris Ford got mentioned a lot this past weekend. Kenny Pickett has gotten name-checked a lot, too. Rashad Wheeler was the host for Calijah Kancey and did a good job with him. Damarri Mathis and Jason Pinnock have been mentioned a few times as well.
Those players deserve some credit for the recruiting haul Pitt made on its first official visit weekend.
There is a lot of versatility
Pitt’s most recent commitment (as of Friday morning) makes this point pretty well.
Kyi Wright is a 6’3” 240-pound athlete from Farrell, and he committed to Pitt Thursday morning. When he committed, Pat Narduzzi told him he was a “big athlete.” In high school he plays quarterback and middle linebacker, and for awhile, Pitt was recruiting him as a linebacker. Then, earlier this spring, the coaches told him he was a future tight end. And in their most recent conversation - the conversation they had when Wright committed - Narduzzi was talking about linebacker again.
The thing is, Wright is bigger than almost any linebacker Pitt has recruited in the last three years. In fact, the only one who really comes close is Brandon George, who committed Sunday night and is similarly built. Both of those guys are looking at playing linebacker, either in the middle or to the boundary side of the field (the “Money” linebacker) but it’s not hard to see a future where one or both of them has a hand on the ground.
Because 6’3” and 240 pounds in the summer before your senior year of high school can pretty easily become 6’3” and 265 pounds after a year of college strength training and nutrition. And while Wright and George move pretty well, once they get to that size - if they get to that size - then it will probably be the lineman’s life for them.
Now, maybe the coaches are able to hold George at 230 or 240 pounds, perhaps by breaking down some of that weight and building it back as muscle; in that case, he could stay at middle linebacker. But the potential to grow into different spots is intriguing - and it’s shared by quite a few recruits in the 2019 class.
Bryce Nelms, for instance. Pitt recruited him as a defensive end, but more than any of the three other ends they got, he seems like he could potentially move to offensive tackle (Pitt has had some success moving defensive linemen to the offensive line; Dave Wannstedt used to think that generally the defensive linemen were more athletic and could move their feet better, which made them a good fit on offense).
Nelms is the most likely candidate among the defensive ends to move to offensive tackle, but he’s not the only DE who could move. DeAndre Jules is an interesting one; he’s 6’3” and 250 pounds and looks like he could fit at end, but he also seems like he could add decent weight - the coaches already said they hope to get him up to 265 pounds, so that’s a start - and potentially shift inside to defensive tackle, where his athleticism at end could make him dangerous up the middle.
Sure, Jules plays as a stand-up pass-rusher in a 3-4 defense at his high school, but that’s more of a testament to the athleticism he has at his size than it is a limitation on where he can play.
Even in the recruits Pitt is still after, the versatility is present. Like Jason Collier: he’s a tight end who checks in at 6’7” and 275 pounds - it doesn’t take much to draw conclusions about his future. Either he’s going to be a Gronk-plus-10-pounds monster at tight end or he’s going to move to offensive tackle.
All of this potential position-switching does create some wiggle room with the recruiting class numbers. For example, on paper Pitt has four defensive ends and four linebackers committed; that’s eight of the 13 commits so far. But if Nelms plays offensive tackle and Jules plays defensive tackle and Wright plays tight end, now things are spread out a little more. And the best part is, the coaches can keep those lines blurred a little bit as they build the class; as long as they don’t overload at any one position group or “athlete type,” they can continue to take the best recruits available.
These players have interest from other Power Five programs
The positions the recruits end up playing is a future projection; the offers they have is a current observation, and to that end, there are some interesting things to note.
In looking at the offer sheets for Pitt’s 13 commitments per Rivals.com, they held offers from 28 Power Five schools (not including Pitt). Those 28 schools represented each Power Five conference, with nine schools from the ACC, nine from the Big Ten, six from the SEC, three from the Big 12 and one from the Pac-12 (Kyi Wright had an offer from UCLA).
12 out of those 13 commits had offers from at least one Power Five school other than Pitt.
There’s no perfect measure of a recruit’s quality. The best way to draw conclusions about whether a recruit is “good” or not is by collecting a variety of data from a variety of sources, primarily recruiting rankings, evaluations, high school stats and offer sheets.
From those particular measures, offer sheets loom pretty large. They’re a rather tangible indication of what other college teams wanted those players. If you want to beat the teams you face on the field each year, then you should probably try to get players that are at least as good as the ones those teams are getting - and that’s the case for Pitt in this class so far.
So while the offers for Pitt’s commits might only represent 29 of the 65 Power Five teams, which is less than 50%, included within that 29 are 18 of the 26 teams in the ACC and Big Ten; Pitt’s commits all fall in the geographic footprint of those two conferences, and most of the teams in those leagues wanted these players.
Ultimately, the most important thing is that the Pitt coaches wanted these players. If you believe Pat Narduzzi and his staff are a good fit for the program and you trust them to pursue players who can really help, then the only offer that matters is Pitt. But beyond that, it’s certainly not a bad thing to see most of the teams Pitt is competing against on the field show up on the offer sheets, too.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
Who was the biggest surprise?
As we reflect on Pitt’s big recruiting haul last weekend, which continued into this week, one thing that comes to mind is the surprise factor:
Some of those commitments were downright jaw-dropping.
Before the visit weekend, I polled all of the known recruits who were coming to town to figure out which ones intended to take more official visits after the Pitt trip. Some said no, they didn’t have anything scheduled and planned to make their commitments this summer, which seemed to bode well for Pitt’s chances.
Others - most, really - said they would be taking additional official visits in the fall. The plan seemed to be to visit Pitt and then add another three or four visits in a couple months before committing, and that scenario did not bode well for the Panthers, since there would be a window of possibly four-to-six months between their Pitt visit and their commitment.
You never want to have that kind of space between visit and commitment. Distance might make the heart grow fonder, but memories fade over time, and there would be a lot of time to fade the memories of the Pitt visit.
Of course, that all changed when a bunch of those guys decided to just commit to Pitt. So who was the biggest surprise from the group of eight who committed?
Well, basically anyone other than Davis Beville would count as a true surprise. We thought there was a good chance he would commit on the visit and he did. But the other seven commitments from the official visit weekend came as a surprise, and not just to us: a common refrain from the recruits was that they didn’t expect to commit on the visit (even Beville said he thought he would leave uncommitted).
Still, words are one thing, and the recruits who committed to Pitt weren’t just talking about being surprised; a bunch of them were set to visit other schools after Pitt. Bryce Nelms had a visit set up to Maryland and Rutgers was thought to be his favorite. Khadry Jackson was going to visit N.C. State. Brandon Mack had a top five that he was definitely going to visit - Pitt now, the other four in the fall - before committing. DeAndre Jules was sure he would take all five official visits. Brandon Hill even left campus without committing - and then called Pat Narduzzi on the way to the airport.
So who’s the biggest surprise? I would probably say Brandon Mack, just because he was set on visiting all of the schools in his top five. But you could make a good case for Brandon Hill or Bryce Nelms or DeAndre Jules. I thought Pitt would land Khadry Jackson eventually; the big surprise was that he committed when he did.
Still, I’ll go with Mack. I think he’s a big-time prospect and a huge score for Pitt to land over the weekend.
Will they all stick?
This is a wet-blanket question, but it’s one to ask, for a few reasons.
As of this writing, Pitt has 13 commitments on June 22. That’s not the most in the country - 14 schools have 14 or more commitments, four other schools have 13 and six more have a dozen, so 25 programs currently hold 12 or more commitments.
But still, when you have that many commits that early in the process, it’s natural to wonder if all of them will still be on board when Signing Day comes. Last week we wrote about how the odds were stacked against Leslie Smith, since Pat Narduzzi is 0-for-3 in signing his first commitment of each class (Tony Butler, Exree Loe and Jay Symonds all signed elsewhere). But what about the 12 recruits who have committed since Smith? Will they all stick?
That question is valid due to the numbers - the more commitments you have, the more likely you are to have a decommit - but there’s also something to be said for the fact that nine of the 13 commitments came during an official visit weekend (eight over the weekend plus JUCO tight end Travis Koontz, who committed at the end of his visit). Narduzzi hasn’t historically had a lot of in-visit commits, largely because he and his staff haven’t made a habit of pressuring recruits; they’re content to let the kids leave campus, go home, sleep on the decision and then commit.
And I think that’s part of the reason that Narduzzi has only lost one commitment from a recruit who took an official visit and then committed later: the kids have a chance to think things over and then make a decision they are sure of.
These nine commitments came during an official visit, and that’s something to note. Official visits are designed to make recruits excited about the school that is hosting them, and they almost always accomplish that goal. Very rarely do you hear recruits talk about a bad official visit; they’re usually very enjoyable affairs and recruits usually come out of them feeling very good about the school that hosted them.
As such, there’s a risk of a heat-of-the-moment commitment - the verbal that comes when a recruit gets so caught up in the visit that he commits. I say “risk” because it’s not hard to envision that commitment coming undone after the luster of the visit wears off.
So is Pitt at risk for that scenario with the nine recruits who committed during their visits?
Yes, to some extent, there is some risk. That’s why this class will be an interesting test of Narduzzi’s no-pressure approach: if the staff held to that philosophy on the weekend visits - and there’s no indication that they strayed from it - then they should be in better position to hold onto these commitments.
Then again, if a recruit flips because another school had a strong season and a good recruiting pitch, then the approach doesn’t matter. But it will be interesting to see how many of these 13 sign at Pitt.
ONE PREDICTION
The rankings will improve
This might sound like something we said a lot last year - and it is - but I think Pitt’s current 13 recruits will see their rankings improve by the time we get to Signing Day.
As I look over the commitment list, a few obvious candidates jump out. Brandon George isn’t a two-star prospect. Kyi Wright isn’t a 5.6 three-star; he’s at least a 5.7 and possibly higher. Brandon Mack should have a shot at getting a fourth star. Davis Beville could, too. Vincent Davis and Leslie Smith will be held back by their size, but both can be higher than a 5.5 three-star.
Honestly, I can make a case for almost every recruit to get a bump of at least one ratings point and, in some cases, two. And I’ll be surprised if most of those bumps don’t come through.
That’s why class rankings are funny at this time of year. First of all, they’re all relative to other teams’ classes, so you can rise and fall without anything changing in your class (for what it’s worth, Pitt was at No. 26 nationally and No. 5 in the ACC Friday morning). And second, they change as the recruits get their individual rankings updated.
So it will be a work in progress, but I do think you’ll see upgrades for a number of Pitt commits over the next six months.