CLEMMINGS SELECTED BY MINNESOTA IN NFL DRAFT’S FOURTH ROUND
PITTSBURGH—Pitt offensive tackle T.J. Clemmings was selected in the NFL Draft’s fourth round on Saturday by the Minnesota Vikings.
Clemmings was the 110th overall pick in the draft. Initially projected as a first-round prospect, he fell to the fourth round after being recently diagnosed with a foot stress fracture.
With his selection, Pitt has now had at least one player chosen in 14 of the last 16 drafts. Clemmings is the first Pitt player in 25 years to be drafted by Minnesota. Defensive back Alonzo Hampton was a fourth-round pick of the Vikings in 1990.
A relative newcomer to the game, Clemmings played only two seasons of high school football at New Jersey’s Paterson Catholic. At Pitt, he began his career as a defensive end before moving to offensive tackle prior to his junior season.
Following a year of adjustment, Clemmings enjoyed an exceptional senior season. His 2014 postseason accolades included first team All-ACC, second team All-America (Phil Steele and the Football Writers Association of America) and selection to the prestigious Senior Bowl.
“Everyone at Pitt is incredibly proud of T.J.,” first-year Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said. “We know he is going to be a great asset for the Vikings, on and off the field. I can remember recruiting him when he was in high school. It has been really great reconnecting with him at Pitt these past few months. He is a tremendous player and person.”
In its pre-draft evaluation, NFL.com wrote that Clemmings has “elite change-of-direction talent and knee bend” and owns “the talent to make any block asked of him in the running game.” The analysis added that he “moves like a tight end in space with an ability to zero in on targets and finish them in the screen game.”
Archived audio from today’s media conference call with Vikings draft pick T.J. Clemmings.
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Wow, this is getting crazy.
That was Cheesehead Paulie’s first game as Head(Cheese) Coach.
And the QB who led Pitt onto the field on that glorious day in Pitt football history, against the Youngstown State Penguins of Division 2, was the one and only…. Senior QB, Santino (Tiny) Sunseri.
He of the ‘dink & dunk’passes and the fetal position curl to avoid an in-completion.
He did throw a nice pass thru the FG posts one time.
And he’s not the end all for sure. But for Pitt and what we recruit at QB over the last 25 years, he’s pretty good.
And the key is he was only a sophomore and he put up pretty good stats. Better than most other QB’s in the ACC.
Peterman would have to be damn good, to supplant a kid who was the #1 rated QB in the ACC for conf games. Nothing he did at Tenn suggests that.
it. Competition is great.
And whoever the coaching staff picks, I’ll be
rooting for. I don’t have a love child in the game.
However, after watching last year, if you didn’t see Chad Voytik develop into a pretty good college football quarterback, you must have been watching another team.
Especially for his first year.
Last five games, Pitt scored
48, 35, 30, 35, and 34 points and went
2-3.
Most teams go 5-0 with those kind of points.
Don’t let the constant tv appearances by TCU and Baylor fool you. Most teams do not score 60 points a game. A great deal of college scores are still 21-10, 24-17, 28-14.
In those last five games, Pitt’s average points would have put them ranked 18th in the country out of 128 Div 1 teams.
QB wasn’t the problem my friends. QB was actually a positive for this team in the end.
Comment by Dan 05.04.15 @ 9:06 am
Keep going to bat for our guy Voytek. With all the great stats and No.1 QB rankings you identified you really hit the nail on the head for the naysayers. That being those stats represent Chad’s SOPHMORE SEASON ! He is only entering his junior year, it is reasonable to think he will develop further in his Junior year. Besides this is Tyler’s final year do you want to risk his performance on breaking in a new QB.
As I said earlier Peterman is her for INSURANCE in case Chad gets hurt. PN can unleash Chad’s running abilities, something Christ was afraid to do.