Upstate NY products playing for Pitt get some love from the locals ahead of today’s game. Kevin Collier is asked if he still loves Pitt.
Yeah, he’s pretty happy with his decision.
“It’s the place I want to be,” says Collier, who is averaging 3.2 yards per carry in a backup role. “I love it here.”
Plenty of family will be on hand at the Carrier Dome, but not all.
Collier will have some, but not all, of his family present. He expects “more than a dozen” on hand, including his parents, but younger brother Averin will be busy. The Churchville-Chili junior has emerged as a top college prospect himself and will be playing at Webster Thomas today.
“He’s having a great season,” Kevin says of Averin. “I’m very proud of him.”
As for McKenzie Mathews, he kind of dodges and weaves around discussion of what had him leave the team in training camp.
“I wasn’t homesick. I never thought about transferring to Syracuse, never made any inquiries about it,” he said this week. “I made the right choice coming to Pittsburgh. I like the school and I like the football program. I was just going through some personal issues.”
Mathews, a freshman defensive end, will return home again this weekend, when the Panthers visit Syracuse today in the Carrier Dome. He has played in two of Pitt’s five games and is credited with two tackles.
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Mathews said he slid down the Panthers’ depth chart after his Syracuse visit a couple months ago. Coaches, he said, allowed him a week off from practice to deal with his issues. Mathews said he stayed in Syracuse for three or four days before heading back to Pitt and practice.
During his time home, he visited CBA football practices and talked to coaches there about his situation. He said he also had long talks with his mother, Sonia Williams.
“It helped,” he said. “It was something I needed to get through and it helped a lot. To play well, I needed to go home and take some time away from everything.”
Well, he may not have considered transferring to Syracuse — and actually the Big East prohibits that — but he did debate leaving Pitt and football behind.
