Who is Cole Mitchell?

Pitt’s late addition to the 2021 recruiting class was something of a surprise, but not for Rick Conner.

The Linganore High School head football coach has seen this coming for tight end prospect Cole Mitchell, who graduated after a standout career for the Lancers and will join Pitt this fall as the final scholarship player to be added to the roster.

“He’s really good,” Conner told Panther-Lair.com. “He’s one of the best kids I’ve ever coached and I’ve been doing this 35 years. I’ve had Rob Havenstein, who plays for the Rams, and Zach Zwinak, who was an All-Big Ten running back, and Cole fits that mold.

“I’ve known Cole since he was in third or fourth grade, and always felt like Pitt is the kind of place he’d end up. He’s a Power Five kid and he has always been.”

The Pitt coaches were sold on Mitchell after he worked out at their prospect camp two weeks ago, but that was the latest twist in his recruitment. Mitchell was a star for Linganore in Frederick, Md., but he was under-recruited due to a variety of factors, Conner said.

To start, Mitchell - like the rest of the class of 2021 - couldn’t attend any prospect camps last summer due to the NCAA’s COVID dead period.

Then Mitchell’s junior season was marred by a bout with mono that left him unable to play at a high level on both sides of the ball as he had been in his previous two years. As a result, Conner and the Linganore staff primarily used him on defense, where the team needed him.

And to top it off, Mitchell’s senior season was postponed to the spring, so he couldn’t even produce any healthy senior film until after Signing Day in February.

With all of that in play, Mitchell decided that he would go to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., after graduation and reclassify to the 2022 recruiting class in the hopes of drawing more interest. But the Pitt coaches saw enough at their prospect camp to sell them on a scholarship offer for the upcoming season.

“If he could have gone to camps last summer, he would have done what he did at Pitt and people would say, ‘Where did he come from?’” Conner said. “When he got a chance to get out and be seen, he showed what he can do.”

And what he can do, according to Conner, is a little bit - or a lot - of everything.

“He’s the guy that can do it all. He can run routes and catch balls, and I know he’s going to get better at that. And he can block like crazy. He’s violent.

“We’re a run-heavy team, so he had some long catches because he’s got great hands, but we didn’t throw to him that much. He can move, though: he’s out there throwing down tomahawk dunks. I think he might be the best basketball player in our area.”

Pitt offered Mitchell a scholarship in the week that followed his prospect camp performance, and he made his way to campus for an official visit this past weekend.

“He could have gone down to IMG and I think that would have served its purpose, too,” Conner said. “I think he would have got what he ended up getting. But he just went up to Pitt and the family was really impressed. The head coach up there does a great job and Cole felt like, ‘Dang, we’re going to win here. I like this place.’

“They all looked at it and said, ‘This is too good to pass up.’”

Conner said that Mitchell is currently 6-foot-5.5 and 238 pounds, but he expects his star tight end to only get bigger with time.

“That’s just his natural size; wait until he gets in with their strength guys. He’s going to be a good one.”