It’s a practice this morning, so hopefully there will be something interesting to read tomorrow. In the meantime a couple of the stories focus on players who now have their chance to grab the starting jobs.
Mike Cruz has been stuck behind Nate Byham and Dorin Dickerson at TE. He has the early chance to be the starting TE this season.
“It was a huge loss losing two of the best tight ends in the country, and you really have some shoes to fill,” Cruz said. “I feel like I need to step in and be a leader for the whole tight end group and for the offense. It’s a huge, huge loss, but you can’t dwell on who you lost. You just gotta step up and do your best.”
Cruz now leads a Pitt tight end group with several new faces, including redshirt junior Andrew Devlin, who sat out last season after transferring from Virginia, and redshirt freshman Brock DeCicco.
“I definitely learned a lot watching Nate and all the older guys,” DeCicco said. “Now, I’m just coming out, learning from Cruz and trying to learn and compete. It’s making us all better right now.”
Brock DeCicco was a big TE recruit, but Cruz was no small recruit either. He had waffled between Pitt and Alabama. While none of the TEs on the depth chart are athletic freaks like Dickerson, that doesn’t mean they can’t get a lot of chances to catch the ball. Byham — prior to getting hurt and Dickerson emerging — had lots of chances.
Then there is redshirt junior Chris Jacobson. He has had to take a medical redshirt early and ended up behind other O-linemen who developed. That and, of course, he made mistakes in practice. Something that Coach Wannstedt never wants to see.
Jacobson could always do the latter. From a physical standpoint, he was ready to play when he was a true freshman, but not having a full grasp of the mental aspects of the game is what prevented him from earning the starting left guard position this past fall.
Jacobson competed with senior Joe Thomas throughout camp, but the coaches decided to start Thomas because he did not make as many mental errors.
“It was just stupid mistakes that shouldn’t have been made that you want to kick yourself in the butt for,” Jacobson said. “It was never the physical part. It was just some of the mental parts.
“But now the mental part is clicking. Now I look at some of the mistakes I made, and it’s like, ‘That’s so easy. It all falls in like a puzzle.’ “
He was very effective in the Meineke Bowl,when Thomas was hurt. The job is obviously his. Not even to lose. It’s his job barring injury or a complete meltdown.
