Scout.com has come out with their updated recruit star rankings as they do a few times each recruiting cycle and our five committed recruits have all been awarded three stars. That is a jump for Shakir Soto, Aaron Reese and Jaymar Parrish from having two stars or being unranked. Parrish has also been designated as the #3 FB in the nation. Orndoff and Samuelson already had three stars next to their name. Congrats to them all.
As a result of the update Scout also released their updated team recruiting rankings. As of today PITT is positioned at #38 overall and tied for #28 in average number of stars. For comparison we were #40 for the 2012 recruiting year, #47 for 2011 and had a great year for 2010 under Wannstedt at #17 (overall).
That’s not too bad considering it is early days and especially considering the crap our football program has gone through over the last 18 months. It was a mess and we are dragging ourselves out of it one day at a time.
All of which leads us to this article about Paul Chryst’s recruiting approach written by Chris Peak of Panther-Lair.com. It is interesting in that he reiterates the fact that Paul Chryst has been doing pretty much what he’d said he do in recruiting when he was hired – let the University and the football program sell itself as much as possible.
Chryst and his staff have been very un-forceful in recruiting thus far. More than a few recruits have commented on how “laid-back” the coaches are; that term has been used quite often by the recruits themselves. When Cincinnati offensive line recruit Alex Gall visited Pitt this spring, the interaction with Chryst stuck out for that very reason:
“Coach Chryst told me he wants me to make the best decision for me. He was really laid-back about it. There are a few schools that are like that, but he really didn’t want to push me to make a decision. It was pretty unique how laid-back he was.”
Similarly, when four-star Belle Vernon offensive tackle Dorian Johnson was on campus last week, he had the same impression:
“I liked the fact that we just chilled. There was no pressure and they really didn’t talk about football at all. We just talked about my personal life. That’s different because usually coaches try to talk up the program and talk about football and all of that, and they really didn’t do that at all.”
Peak goes on to say that will be effective up to a point but sooner or later the hard sell has to come into effect. Chris Dokish over at Panther’s Prey addressed this in part earlier in March with this article (last paragraphs).
Dokish doesn’t like Chryst’s approach much at all and is somewhat baffled by it.
On Pitt football, it’s still at least a year before we have any idea at all how the Paul Chryst era will go, but I admit that so far I’m a little nervous. Before people go off on me I’m not saying that Chryst is a failure or will be a failure.
But I wasn’t impressed at all how he formed his staff and I have no idea what they’re doing on the recruiting trail. Well actually I do know and what they’re doing is very little so far.
It’s not about the amount of verbal commitments they have, which officially stands at zero, but rather the total lack of buzz on the recruiting trail. Part of what I do is to keep in touch with a lot of high school and college coaches, scouting services, players, family, etc., and I can tell you that there just isn’t a lot of Pitt talk out there.
Now remember that the above was written two months ago in March and things have changed with five recruits committed at this point. But Dokish has been consistently critical of Chryst and staff in this area. Not so much about whom we have gotten to verbal so far but what is happening, or not happening, behind the scenes.
So, what does that mean for us going forward and what is the impact of Chryst’s “laid-back” approach?
First off I think there is a definite and concerted effort on Paul Chryst’s part to project this exact image that he has insofar as recruiting is concerned. The one thing he realized he had to do as PITT’s HC was to be the Anti-Graham right off the bat. No hucksterism, no bravado, no hard line pressure that it must be “PITT or Nothing” with these recruits.
The common theme with the local HS coaches and recruit’s parents, at least what I’ve heard, is that Chryst is a breath of fresh air in his approach. They weren’t impressed with The Little Emperor at all.
This is what we wanted and I believe what most of us appreciate about the guy so far. He’s going about his business quietly and in fitting with his character.
The actual recruiting results at this early phase in the recruiting cycle are pretty impressive so far. He’s landed way more recruits at this date than either of the previous two (actual) head coaches with five commitments. As stated above he has PITT in pretty good shape comparatively with other schools which is more of a feel good item than anything else but it does show that we are holding our own so far.
But here is the thing. Before we get our knickers in a bunch thinking that we have a Rod McKuen flower child rather than a George Patton Field General as a recruiter let’s consider this. He and his staff haven’t had to fight for any of the high target recruits yet so we actually have no idea what he will be like when push comes to shove with the other schools.
Pitt is still at or very near the top of the list for blue chip players like #1 rated WR Robert Foster, #12 OL Dorian Johnson and others like RB Cory Clement and #14 S Tyler Boyd. These four recruits are well acquainted with the new staff and all have been to PITT for recruiting visits. Foster and Johnson are considered heavy PITT leans at this point. I don’t believe that would be the case if Chryst wasn’t pursuing them with some vigor.
All these kids, and many of our other blue chip targets have huge offer lists and Chryst will have to work long and hard to convince them that PITT is it. It is kind of silly to think that he’ll just float an offer out there while all the other schools are nailing the kid’s hands to the desk.
Peak addresses this in his article also:
The “laid-back” approach – a poor term due to its oversimplification – shows respect for the recruit and allows him to make his own decision. It also goes a long way toward ensuring that recruits who commit to Pitt are doing it because they genuinely want to be at Pitt.
But as the recruiting process goes on and the official visit season begins in the fall, Chryst and his staff may need to add the extra element of “encouragement” to their strategies. That adjustment may even be part of the strategy: start off “laid-back” and then gently apply more pressure as the recruiting process goes on. At this point, though, Chryst has only shown one side of the approach.
We may well see a bit of a personality change out of Paul Chryst over next year as we put more distance between the PITT football program and Todd Graham. He may be more aggressive right out of the gate for the beginning of the 2014 recruiting year.
For this year however we are going to see a HC who goes about his business with a minimum of fanfare and no bells and whistles. Still, the proof will be in the pudding and we’ll need to see results, regardless of the type of pressure applied.
So far I’d say the results have started coming in pretty well…
Hail to Pitt!
Great post Reed.
see how it goes. i wish him luck.
I’d be interested to know the other schools which use a low-key soft-sell approach. I suspect the list is pretty short.
I hope Chryst’s approach works, in part because it’s easier & cheaper. That said, there aren’t too many important activities in life where the east-does-it approach works better.
Also, I think in the end that the big majority of these guys like being pursued, being BMOCs.
The “just offer” approach will work a lot better if Pitt can somehow manage to win 9-10 games this year. Which is code for, if Pitt can somehow [find a QB to play good well enough in practice to unseat Anti-Tebow Sunseri].
Chryst getting “3” star players to commit to a program like ours, in transition, fresh from a shotgun marriage gone bad, stuck in the Big East for now is a friggin miracle!!!!
Who the “F” is “Dokish” and precisely WTF does he know about recruiting under these circumstances?
Wanna bitch and moan? Wait until Chryst punts on 3rd down or keeps the equivalent of Shady on the bench because he isn’t ready.
Given our recent history, we are lucky we aren’t competing with RMU for recruits.
Please God, grant me the patience to deal with the stupidity of the wanna be, but ain’t and never will be experts.
He’s knowledgeable about the recruiting scene but some people find him hard to read because he’s very opinionated. When he puts up his mostly factual recruiting articles they are very informative.
I like his work and check his blog everyday but take his opinions/predictions with a grain of salt as everyone should do with writers on the Internet, myself included.
Imma – I think way too much has been made of that “just offer” comment by Chryst. The one constant that I’ve heard about Chryst so far is that he spends a lot of time getting to know the kids he’s been seriously recruiting. Aaron Reese said that they spent an hour on the phone before he committed; Johnson mentioned above that his conversations were of a more personal nature, etc. That isn’t just throwing an offer out and letting it lay there.
What I think Chryst is doing at this point is ‘just offering’ in the sense that he’s not going to threaten to pull offers if the player takes his time, makes other visits, etc. At this point Chryst and PITT really don’t have any leverage to do that and I’m not sure it’s in his personal make up to be that way.
Dave Wannstedt was much the same way in his recruiting approach. He didn’t hard sell any of the recruits if they kept looking around before committing and sometimes even after they verballed. Hell, he gave Mike Cruz a scholarship even after Cruz pretty much insulted the program.
The OSUs, Michigans and PSUs of the college football world can be more hard ass in their recruiting approach because a lot of the kids they recruit grew up either wanting to play for them specifically or for the Big Ten. Same with SEC schools, etc.
PITT has to separate themselves in a different fashion and part of that is, as TX Panther states above, making both the player and their parents comfortable that their son is going to be treated well, taken care of and have good role models to look up to. Paterno used to say that 90% of recruiting was getting the parents to want the player to go to school at PSU.
Right now Chryst can’t in all good conscience talk about guaranteed BCS bowls, winning football, and things like that because he hasn’t done that at PITT yet. But he can talk about the university, the city, the football history, the staff he has and how all that will effect the player in the long run.
Get some wins under his belt and a good first season and then he can brag a bit and I’m sure he will in someways. But he isn’t Toddy Graham in that he isn’t going to promise the moon and not deliver.
The OSU’s, WVU’s and PSU’s use the fraud graham approach and it works for them. They get the recruits all hoopied up with rings and trophies and women during massive recruiting visits.
Let’s give the coach some room here. He will be successful and he is planting seeds, regardless of how things look to an observer. His plan is for short term success too, but long term greatness! You go PC, you go boyeeeee!
But that’s still three months away and the approach he’s taken so far with phone calls, smaller recruit visits for more individual face time, showing the university and academics along with the football program, etc. has set the table for the stronger push during the heat of the recruiting season.
I get the feeling that some fans feel that because Chryst is a humble & laid-back guy he’s automatically some sort of pushover. I believe nothing is further from the truth. He’s a man with strong convictions and we heard about that when Zach Brown introduced Chryst to the rest of the PITT team after his hire by saying ‘If he tells you he’s going to do something he’ll do it!‘
We all know guys like Chryst – calm and quiet on the surface and rock solid underneath. This guy isn’t wishy washy and IMO he’ll let some of that show when it becomes necessary.
I didn’t figure you for a HS kid though.
Reed, I must admit that when I think of Chryst, Rod McKuen doesn’t exactly come to mind.
High pressure or low key, Chryst will have to win and win with some class to make it all happen long term. So far, I like and admire what he is doing. I cannot imagine a well organized and accomplished man like Chryst will annoy us with the shenanigans of the Wannstedt and Graham regimes, but again, the proof is in the pudding.
What bothers some PITT fans about his site – and also with Paul Zeise and the Red Shirt Diaries – is that sometimes they ridicule commenters who disagree with their viewpoints. Still, I read each one daily to see what they and their commenters have to say.
I don’t think that negativity happens much on here if at all. At least I know that Chas and I try very hard to let everyone have their say without slamming anyone. I can get into pretty critical discussions, as I did with DRW last year about Myers last season, but it is almost always impersonal and always trying to be informative & reasonable.
When you have a blog where commenters can feel free to express their opinions without intense negative blow back from the bloggers or fellow commenters then you get a much more interesting and civil discussion/debate going on.
To be honest, I wouldn’t take the time or energy to write anything at all for The Blather if it wasn’t this way.
That my fellow Pitt faithful will be what we need to get recruiting pointed in the right direction for many years to come. Just win baby win.
Personally, I’m happy that we still have one more season in the “Big Least” just so that we have the opportunity to put together a first year winning season for Chryst while he gets his ship righted. A couple year’s down the road, it won’t matter that a 9-4 season in 2012 came over the likes of Youngstown State, etc. It will just be viewed as the first year winning record for our new Coach.
Just win baby win. The rest will then all fall neatly into place.
Major sports websites are abuzz over the agreement just made between the SEC and Big 12 to host a “Rose Bowl East” game, mentioning the ACC as an also-ran, especially if Florida State and Clemson flee to the Big 12. So has Pitt merely changed deck chairs on the Titanic?
I won’t quibble with “stars”, except to say that if you are a 3 star and suddenly the guy from OSU is seen sitting behind you at Mass sending you text messages, you become a 5 star betwen the sign of Peace and Communion.
Chryst is a guy, as anyone who has spent more than 5 seconds observing what is obvious, comfortable in his own skin.
Self confidence is usually not flashy….again, Pitt is on the heels of decades of indifference and a recent history of coaching fiasco’s….Who in their right mind thinks a hard sell will work if it is clearly an act? I have had enough “actors” roaming Pitt’s sidelines to last a lifetime.
Dokish….who actually cares?
He wanted mike leach and an air-raid offense, which i couldnt disagree more with. Im not saying that pitt will be winning national titles, but when is the last time an air raid offense won it or was even in it? Auburn was a spread but balanced, oregon is a spread but run heavy, bama/lsu are pro systems, texas was balanced. In fact, i looked back 15 years and there hasnt been one. Im happy pitts running a pro system and has pc as coach. It just feels right
speaking of Zeise … he is still alive as he was interviewed on the Fan the other day, and he said that Graham’s legacy here at Pitt five years from now will not be his one year stay but intead how poorly he coached this offense last year … this is in stark contrast to Dokish who was aTG apologist to the very end, probably beacuse he praised his hiring so much (obviously a mistake.)
Regarding OKST – did you watch college football last year? If they hadn’t thrown up a clunker against Iowa St, they would have been there. Defense sucked but they could score at will.
OkSt had an argument to get to the title and i was rooting for it, actually, but i found it hard to get upset at bama being there. If okst had lost to a baylor or kansas state instead of isu, they wouldve got to the nc game. This was an almost identical situation as 13-9
Nothing will be identical to 13-9 🙂 It will alway make me smile. Nice to see Shady cash in with the large pay day…a rarity nowadays with RB’s. I’m not sweating Chryst – I think he’s a good fit for Pitt and Western PA.
I hope the ACC was on the phone with ND immediately after the SEC/Big 12 deal… even though it’s overrated considering that at least one of the two conferences will have a team in the final four relegating the bowl to 2nd tier teams from both conferences. I also hope that the ACC doesn’t do the same thing with the Big Least – don’t tie your fate to a sinking ship that you poked the hole in.
He twists things to support his viewpoint to the extent that it is almost unbelievable. Here is a case in point:
Chris Dokish May 20, 2012 7:22 PM
Here’s something to make Joe D go off. Elite 2014 western PA linebacker Brenon Thrift says he likes WVU over Pitt because Pitt “acted like they were not really interested”.
That is the old saw that Dokish throws out all the time – that Chryst is slow to recognize talent. Of course the fact that the kid is a 2014 recruit is lost on Dokish.
Here’s what I said in return:
Please Chris.
One kid that this staff may or may not be interested in? He’s a 2014 recruit and has 20 months before he signs an LOI. Do you really think this staff should be slobbering over every single WPIAL recruit?
And what does “Elite 2014” recruit even mean? Is that your designation? or is it someone who spends as much time on the internet as I do and considers himself some sort of an expert?
How’s this? I am now calling myself an “Elite 2014 Blogger”. Man, do I feel good right now!
It just may be that what you think PITT needs and what Chryst think PITT needs are two different things.
But this is what he does. Singles out some small trivial fact and presents it like it is a flaw in Chryst’s work as a HC.
Then he talks about the five guys Chryst has had commit so far with this…
“As for how many recruits they have at this point, who cares? That means nothing. They have to be the right recruits and time will tell if they will be.”
As if that same exact standard doesn’t apply to every single HS senior who is recruited to play college football. But since it’s Paul Chryst that is a negative for some reason.
He has been negative about Paul Chryst since he was hired and seems to be looking in some tight paces to find fault with how Chryst has been doing his job so far. It is one thing to remain skeptical until results on the field are shown, but a whole other thing to look for things to criticize the guy for.
Look, guys, Paul Chryst is not going to blow anyone over by his personality. He’s the anti-Toad plus he doesn’t have the presence of a Wanny. This may frustrate Dokish because I believe he really does want Pitt to succeed. I think the seeming passivity of the staff is frustrating him.
As you can see I am a Dokish apologist!
Turning to ND to the Big 10, link to youtube.com
A self proclaimed expert.
Writing what schools are recruiting what players is one thing. Thinking you know better than coaches that have recruited for years is idiotic.
A) Urban Meyer, Ohio State.
B) Mike Leach, Washington State.
C) Todd Graham, Arizona State.
D) Rich Rodriguez, Arizona.
Cunningham goes on to say “I think (Graham)raises the level of players as good or better than any coach in the country.”
What a joke.
I responded in turn but what got me was this…
“Lastly, if you don’t like what I write go write your own blog.”
Which, BTW Chris, I already pretty much do.
I like his stuff and think that his take on the actual HS players is pretty good, especially helpful for someone like me who doesn’t care to take the time to delve into all of that. That and other things are why I read and comment on there all the time.
But he sure can’t stand the slightest bit of criticism.
But, but, but… I HAVE ZERO CREDIBILITY!!!
Goodbye cruel world…
That said, it is ridiculous to think that anyone’s opinions aren’t shaped in some ways by conversations – if they weren’t then we on here wouldn’t be thinking persons.
I’ll be the first to admit that I sometimes see things differently or even change my mind because of the things I read on here and elsewhere and especially from the comments and observations we all share on here.
Sometimes my first reaction to criticism on here is to raise my hackles but then I purposefully step back and reread what was said and try to see the other POV. Usually it is a valid point.
That is what makes it fun and sometimes valuable IMO.
Anyway keep it up as most appreciate what you have to say!!!!
***** 5 stars from me
