Welcome to the 7th annual Signing Day Open Thread. I’ve followed signing day every year since starting the blog, but the signing day approach was a work in progress. From just a couple recaps as the disappointments of the day started to doing individual posts for groups during the day. Until finally settling on the format of one post with ongoing updates. Ah, memories.
The day is the culmination of a year-long obsession with athletic high schoolers. It will always be more than a little creepy, especially as we are already thinking about kids for next year. Did I actually rework my schedule this week to be at home all-day (aside from taking the kids to school)? Yes. I’m just as culpable in this sickness.
Attention must be paid to the twitter accounts from PantherLair (Rivals.com) and PantherDigest (Scout.com). Along with the Pitt football twitter account that will post updates when the NLI of the kids arrive.
The big deal is the signing ceremony up in Clairton at 10 am. Hopefully Tyler Boyd sticks with Pitt.
Pitt’s athletic department is expanding the coverage it started last year. They will be broadcasting a live-stream for free on the Pitt All-Access that runs from 7:30-11:30 am. It will feature Pat Bostick, Jeff Hathhorn and local high school football expert Don Rebel. Good luck to them in talking for 4 hours about these kids and waiting for the fax machine.
Coach Chryst will have a 3pm presser to wax rhapsodic on all the fine, young gentlemen of upstanding moral character who will be coming to play football at Pitt. That will also stream free on the Pitt website.
The whole shebang starts at 7:30 am. Grab some coffee and don’t ask too many questions about the other brown liquid added to it.
7:12: And we are off and running. Hello, Aaron Reese.
7:13: Zach Challingsworth is probably very bummed he wasn’t first on this. He was very eager.
7:17: And Dorian Johnson is signed and delivered.
7:18: PantherLair doing work. Carson Baker is also signed. Three of the five OL have signed NLI before 7:30.
7:22: Chris Blewitt, the wonderfully named kicker, is signed.
7:24: Luke MacLean is also signed and in.
[7:25: Crap, have to take the kids to school. Will update the stream as soon as I return.]
[8:06: Retroactive catch-up time.]
7:36: James Conner is signed.
7:47: Jaryd Jones-Smith is signing. Four of the five OL for the class signing before 8 am. Think they know about the depth issues and a chance to crack line-up early?
8:04: Devon Edwards also signed.
8:11: Punter Ryan Winslow is signed.
8:21: A little break, but Zach Poker is signed. For him, it isn’t even 7:30 yet.
[ 8:41: Another school run for the other kid.]
[9:02: Back for good. Time to update what was missed.]
8:45: Two at once from Pitt’s twitter: Jester Weah and Tony Harper are signed and delivered to the school.
8:51: Reggie Green has his completed.
8:51: As does Matt Galambos.
8:59: Alex Officer has his in officially to Pitt. Perfect. All the OL are signed and in before 9 am.
9:23: And two more in the book. Justin Moody and Jaymar Parrish are signed.
9:46: Getting it out of the way before the Clairton Three at 10 am. Rachid Ibrahim is signed.
9:55: No, no updates but if you want to know what Boyd decides sometime in the next five to ten minutes, here’s my Twitter feed. I’ll retweet the news as it happens. DiPaola of the Trib, Werner of the P-G, and Greco from PantherDigest are all on the scene.
10:05: Terrish Webb is the first of Clairton Three to make it official for Pitt.
10:06: Titus Howard also says, yes to Pitt. Yes, I know that is no surprise.
10:16: Sorry everyone. I’m guessing my hosting company was unprepared for the crunch of people for the Boyd announcement. Crashed the site.
So, yes. Tyler Boyd signed with Pitt. He had his fun, but made the choice in no small part because of continuing to play with Howard and Webb.
10:30: That just leaves Jeremiah Taleni. He can’t sign any earlier than noon with the time difference of Hawaii. I think it’s a given he’s coming, so for all intents and purposes Pitt signing day is finished nice and early.
In a perfect world, we get Foster, Clement or Kemp, and a 4 star LB. that said, none of those positions have a immediate need (maybe receiver).
Lastly, let’s remember that this class will have little impact on the 2013 season. This class is the future. Patience…
I don’t mind missing on the RBs because I feel like we have a little depth there.
I’ll be interested to see if PC tweeks some of these players positions from what they are projected at. I think just about everyone here expects to see Boyd on offense, but for some reason scout projects him at safety.
It is possible that despite one skill position player as a freshman (Boyd) and another who has not played in two years (Savage – I think this is overplayed/choose to look at Savage as far more mature than most QB’s because of his experience and age /like Flacco he got screwed by poor coaching decision. Consider in freshman year as an immediate starter he passed for 2,211 yards and 14 touchdowns, while throwing only 7 interceptions. Best game of the year, he completed 14 of 27 passes for a season-high 294 yards and 2 touchdowns against the University of Central Florida in the 2009 St. Petersburg Bowl. He was named on the All-American Freshman Team by the Football Writers Association of America).
So, although the schedule will be bruttle next year we possibly have 4 players at the skilled positions that very well could have NFL careers in their futures (Wish Savage had 2 years left.
kentucky class who had not signed his loi yet