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The freshman experience

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The moment comes for every player in every sport.

It’s the instant when they realize they’re competing at a higher level. It’s the JV player’s first snap on varsity. The freshman’s first at-bat against college pitching. The juniors goalie’s first time facing an NHL slapshot.

No matter how talented the player, no matter how well prepared, it’s a big moment when everything steps up a notch or two, when the competition is better than he’s ever faced and, by extension, he understands instantly that he has to be better than he has ever been.

Call it the “welcome to college football” moment, and Pitt’s sophomores-to-be, who saw their first playing time less than six months after attending their senior proms, remember those moments quite well.

“Oklahoma State,” cornerback Jason Pinnock says. “It was just bombs.”

Of course, Pinnock is referring to Pitt’s debacle against the Cowboys at Heinz Field in Week Three last season, when Mason Rudolph led a passing attack that put up more than 400 yards and five touchdowns - in the first half alone.

“I’m like, this is crazy. That was definitely an eye-opener. I didn’t play much in there, but just being next to coach and seeing the calls and seeing their tempo.”

Pinnock’s eye-opener came from the sidelines, but his fellow freshman cornerback, Damarri Mathis, believes he had his eyes opened on the field.

“At the Penn State game, my first tackle - after that, I was tuned into the game and ready to go,” Mathis says.

For whatever it’s worth, Mathis wasn’t credited with a tackle in the Penn State game, and his playing time on defense didn’t come until late in the fourth quarter when he replaced Avonte Maddox after Maddox incurred a personal foul penalty on kick coverage.

Mathis had his real moment a few weeks later. Pitt was hosting Virginia at Heinz Field when starter Dane Jackson had to leave the field with an injury late in the game. Mathis replaced Jackson for one snap, a first-and-10 at the Pitt 22, and the Cavaliers went right at him: UVa. quarterback Kurt Benkert tried to throw to senior receiver Doni Dowling, who was lined up across from Pitt’s freshman cornerback.

“That was good and bad,” Mathis recalls. “It was my first play getting in and they ran a go-route on me. I jammed him and got to a cut-off and faded him but dropped the pick. I was in good position, but it was bad because I didn’t make the play.”

Mathis didn’t get the interception on that play, but he still broke up the pass on one of the first times an opponent tried to test him as a freshman. That was nine games into the season; Cal Adomitis, who was Pitt’s long-snapper last season, got tested much earlier in the schedule.

“The very first snap against Youngstown State, I was like, ‘Holy smokes, this is happening,’” Adomitis says. “But toward the middle of the season, Duke was the first team that started coming hard in the A-gaps and trying to take advantage of a young snapper. I got a holding penalty in that game and I was like, ‘Crap, I have to buckle down.’

“Coach Powell said, ‘Cal, can you do this?’ I had to make a decision to do it and trust my technique, and that was a moment where it was really grass-cutting time. I had to put my foot down and make sure I got it done.”

Adomitis learned a couple things from that Duke game. He had to learn to deal with up-the-middle pressure, which resulted in a holding penalty that turned a fourth-and-11 punt into a fourth-and-21. But the fourth-and-21 punt taught him a lesson, too:

Don’t keep playing when your helmet comes off.

That was the play when Adomitis lost his helmet in the scrum after the snap but still ran down the field to try to make the tackle, drawing national attention for his toughness but local attention from the referees, who assessed him a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Such is life for freshmen who play right away. There are “teaching moments” - coach-speak for bad plays that usually involves a fair amount of yelling - and there is a period of adjustment that often takes a full season. The physical adjustment is considerable, but the mental side can be even tougher.

“I wouldn’t even say the speed of the game,” Pinnock says of the biggest things he had to get used to. “That was definitely top-three, but I would say the biggest thing was attention to details - just the timing of stuff, timing of throws. If you’re coming off your break and you look at the quarterback, that gets you beat right away. It’s not like high school; you can’t keep your eye on the quarterback and make a play playing press-man.

“Every detail is essential. It’s hard work, especially when you’re exhausted and playing press-man every snap. You definitely have to lock into your keys.”

Pinnock, Mathis and Adomitis made up half of the freshmen who played for Pitt last season. Tight end Tyler Sear, running back AJ Davis and quarterback Kenny Pickett also made their debuts. There were varying degrees of success in that group, with Pickett surpassing them all when he led Pitt to an upset of then-No. 2/then-undefeated Miami in the season finale.

Pickett was the star among the freshmen, and Pinnock, Mathis and Sear saw their contributions increase and their performances improve as the season went on, but none of the freshmen played more than Adomitis.

A forgotten man among the freshmen, Adomitis arrived at Pitt last summer as a walk-on from Central Catholic. His walk-on commitment didn’t make many headlines, even though Pat Narduzzi introduced him with the rest of the recruiting class in February. But while most fans and media largely ignored the walk-on long-snapper, Adomitis thought he could make an impact.

“I knew I had a good chance,” he says. “I just had to trust in what I worked on over the past years. I think it was a mindset: my dad was telling me I had to go into it knowing it was my job and that I was coming to take it.

“Coming into camp, I was third on the depth chart, then as things went on, I kept doing my thing and trusting myself all the way through.”

Adomitis played in every game last season - something no other freshmen could say. Pinnock nearly hit that number, appearing in 11 of the 12 games (he says he only missed the Virginia Tech game due to illness). Sear played in the first five games and the final four, including starting assignments in the final two games. Mathis also played in nine games. And Pickett appeared in four.

The playing time may have varied, but there’s one thing the freshmen all agree on: seeing the field last season has them better prepared for this spring, which has seen Pinnock, Sear and Pickett working on the first team and Mathis and Davis battling for second-team reps (all while Adomitis holds it down at long-snapper).

“It helped a lot,” Mathis says. “I know the system, I know the scheme, all the blitzes, the plays, all my responsibilities and everything. It helps me to play faster because I know what to expect and what I’m getting on the field.”

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