Will Clarke out of Allderdice has apparently given a verbal to Pitt.

According to Allderdice coach Don Schmidt, Clarke, 6 feet 6, 245-pounds, will choose Pitt after also considering scholarship offers from West Virginia and several Mid-American Conference schools.

Also a tight end at Allderidice, Clarke is seen as a tremendously raw recruit with the potential improve exponentially. He helped lead the Dragons to the City League title game last season.

Clarke comes from great athletic bloodlines — he is the son of Bill Clarke, who started on the fabled 1976 Fifth Avenue High School basketball team before going on to play at Duquesne.

Colin Dunlap at the P-G — who broke the story — seems to love this guy. Going so far as to say he’s got Greg Romeus potential. The star-ratings are not so kind. Scout.com puts him at 1-star. Rivals.com gives him 2 and says he’s the 40th best prospect in the commonwealth.

Obviously he is a complete project who likely won’t be seen on the field for a bit. A redshirt will definitely be in his future.

Then there is Darrin Walls, the cornerback who went to ND. There are lots of rumors swirling about Walls who would be a junior. The one that most care about is that he plans to transfer to Pitt. It’s hard to say anything definite at this point, so here’s the background to date.

Walls, it was announced by Notre Dame, would not be enrolled this fall. Instead coming back to Pittsburgh for personal reasons. ND Coach Weis stated that he expected/hoped that Walls would be able to return in the spring semester. Other coaches for ND have echoed that they expect him back. The persistent rumor is that he has some academic problems that led to his not playing this year. What doesn’t quite make sense in that is why he went home to Pittsburgh for the year.

Now, if Walls does indeed want to/plans to transfer to Pitt or any 1-A program he has to sit out 2 semesters (one year). So it would behoove him to enroll before the fall semester would get underway. That would allow him to play next year.

The other thing to consider is getting released from his scholarship at ND. I don’t know ND’s decisionmaking on this sort of thing, but it would not at all surprise me if they don’t release him this year. Especially to Pitt considering the two schools will be meeting over the next six years. That would require Walls to enroll and pay his own way (think Joe Flacco or Luke Getsy).

Over the weekend was the big feature on defensive coordinator Phil Bennett. Not about his defensive philosophies or the standard fare of players talking about new attitude and how much they like playing for the guy. This was the personal side with how he lost his 1st wife to being struck by lightening and the importance of work (coaching) and family kept him going.

In a rare move of actual promotions, Pitt actually sent out an e-mail yesterday promoting the story. Even more, they had links to a video of DC Bennett talking about getting the defense ready. If they actually embraced the last couple years of internet video, they’d have links to allow the embedding rather than having to launch it separately. That’s more on the CSTV system that operates the Pitt website and this stuff, though. They are still using Windows Media Player.

There’s also a video montage of the practice from Saturday. Not much to really take from it other than seeing Jonathan Baldwin make a spectacular one-handed leaping grab. He’s wearing #82, but trust me, there is no confusing his presence.

Another weekend feature was on the drudgery of players going through training camp.

It’s one that is based on precision, as every minute is accounted for during camp from the time the players awake by 6 a.m. until their 10:30 p.m. curfew. Sleep becomes a precious commodity, and the sound of the whistle an annoying way to wake up.

“I set my alarm clock one minute before and one minute after they blow the whistle,” said senior left guard C.J. Davis, in his fourth training camp. “I hate the whistle. Sometimes, it’s hard because you get out of practice and feel like you just laid down and then you hear that whistle at the crack of dawn.

“The days are long, but the nights go fast. It always feels like we don’t get enough rest. Our strength coaches say that too much of anything is not good for you, so I’ll have to take their word for it.”

…

Before they know it, they will put in a 15-hour day at Duratz Athletic Building filled with meetings, practice and more meetings.

I’m assuming there’s food.

Just a couple stories to pass along.

Todd Thomas out of Beaver Falls has Pitt at the top of his list.

Thomas, the all-state senior from Beaver Falls, is considering scholarship offers from a roster of schools that includes, tentatively in the top five slots, Pitt, Penn State, Boston College, Michigan and Ohio State.

“Pitt’s been coming on strong lately. I’d say Pitt’s at the top of the list right now.”

Ohio State, with a roster than includes Rory Nicol of Beaver and Evan Blankenship of Center, was a late entry into the competition, but the Buckeyes have his attention. If he chooses Ohio State, he could be collecting passes from friend and rival Terrelle Pryor.

Thomas — listed at 6-foot-4, 199 pounds — is being pursued by most schools, including the top five on his list, as a wide receiver. While his ability to sprint through pass routes has made him one of Pennsylvania’s most attractive recruits, he feels no need to sprint to a decision.

“I know some players have made their decision and got it out of the way, but I’m not in a hurry,” he said. “I’ll know when the time is right.”

Thomas is considered a 4-star recruit by both Rivals.com and Scout.com.

Bob Lichtenfels/PantherDigest/Scout.com puts him as the commonwealth’s 10th best recruit. Rivals.com has him #6 preseason in Pennsylvania while PantherLair (still Rivals.com) says #7 (and it looks like he will make their national top-250 list.

Another WR, coming in anywhere from #8 to #16 has chosen to leave Pennsylvania.

Parkland senior wideout Jaleel Clark accomplished his top goal when he verbally committed to the University of Missouri on Sunday night.

Now that Clark, The Morning Call’s 2007 player of the year, has relieved the pressure of having to choose a school, he can tackle the rest of his goals.

Grumbling, semi-unserious snark. Mutter about his grades and consider character assassination.

”I want to go out there and have a great season like I did last year,” he said. ”I just need to get my grades up and do pretty good in the classroom. That’s one of my main goals, to do well in the classroom and get it out of the way.”

Can’t really be too bothered or worried. Especially when he’s heading to the Big 12, where there will be little haunting for him getting away.

You have to wonder how much the news of Doug Fulmer’s latest season ending injury helped dampen the players enthusiasm for a scrimmage. The takes from the reporters and coaches was that it was an average performance at best.

General scrimmage impressions:

“It was solid work. I thought there were enough game-changing plays on both sides of the ball. I was hoping for a little bit more. From the veteran standpoint, we decided to hold LaRod Stephens-Howling and Bill Stull. They both could have gone. If we would have played a game today, they both would have played. We limited LeSean McCoy. He had 11 carries, averaged six yards a carry. I was very pleased with him, except his one turnover. I’d like to say it was an outstanding day of football, but we turned the ball over. He ran good, he made guys miss. Chris Burns looked good, the returners looked good, and all the running backs. Jonathan Baldwin made three great plays. He made two by the sideline. Unfortunately, both of them were out of bounds. It’s pretty evident that we need to find a way to get him ready to go. He has a chance to help us. Andrew Taglianetti keeps showing up from a defensive standpoint. We’re going to start working him on special teams. He can really help us in that area. Overall, solid scrimmage. We didn’t get anyone really hurt today, but we have a lot of work to do.”

Coach Wannstedt kept using the word solid, which might also be interpreted as “uneventful.” There were some issues with the Center exchange, that seems to be attributed to Robb Houser getting a little too hyped.

“It’s unfortunate,” Wannstedt said. “We’ve had no problems the whole training camp. In fact, I commented that this has been the least quarterback-center exchange problems we’ve had since I’ve been here. We haven’t had them. That kind of took the wind out of everybody’s sails, including me.”

The good news is that snapping hadn’t been an issue with Houser, who looks to have a good grip on the starting job. He hasn’t spent much time snapping to Bostick, who filled in for Bill Stull with the first-team offense. And after the early jitters, Houser didn’t have any more problems.

…

Wannstedt wasn’t satisfied with the first scrimmage in general.

“I thought that, overall, it was OK,” he said. “It was solid work. I didn’t think that there were enough big plays, enough game-changing plays on both sides of the ball. I was hoping for a little bit more. …

“We have a lot of work to do. Thank God we don’t play this week.”

Frankly after the first scrimmage and only a week of practice I’d be more nervous if the coaches declared the team ready.

It also had an effect with Bill Stull sitting out the scrimmage to let the sore ribs heal a bit more.