There is a palatable sense of excitement surrounding the hire of Narduzzi and his staff and with the way Narduzzi and the PITT admin have used the social media, new technology and good old fashioned flesh pressing to make that happen. This is making the ramp-up to August and the beginning of fall camp where personnel issues will shake out and then onto the actual season, a time when our collective hopes and wishes may start to come true.  However…

Maybe it is because we have not much else to talk about or maybe it is because this staff keeps adding players we don’t expect to see onto the roster but there has been a lot of talk about Narduzzi’s ‘recruiting expertise’ and his ‘desire’ on here and the message boards.

The things I’m hear most often are that “this staff knows talent” and “this staff wants to win right away.” I get the win right away concept with him, although someone has yet to show me a HC who didn’t want to win right away. But I’m shaky on those other attributes we are attributing to him.

The real kicker is this. How do we know that “this staff knows talent” when every kid they have brought on board the roster by themselves so far has either been listed as 3*s or below or are regurgitations from others teams?

The fact is that Narduzzi has had an extremely average ‘turn-over class’ of 2016 recruits with three 2* and three 3* kids committed after Chryst left PITT in early December, that is a 2.5* average.  Those are the exact same rankings of recruits everyone and their sister have slammed his predecessor for.  For a quick and recent comparison in the same time period, from being hired around Dec 22nd or so  onto LOI Day , Chryst signed one 4*, four 3*s and two 2*s recruits for a 3.6* average.

What happened with those ‘more highly rated recruits’ of Chryst’s?  Well, .500 ball happened which is in itself a good reason to quit jumping up and down.

In addition to the regular recruiting system, each transfer player this staff has gotten is either a JUCO player or someone who hadn’t actual won a multiple game starting job at their first school.  QB Nate Peterman started a game or two but wasn’t really a starter per se in his two years at Tenn.   DT Scarpinato was a back up during his time at MSU and DE Dewayne Hendrix (eligible next season) was a backup also during his time at Tenn.

Of course on the flip side of that is if these kids were starters they most probably would not be looking around for a new home.

Our new WR, Rafael Araujo-Lopes (say that three times fast), who is eligible to play this season, was a starter at his junior college team and looks to be a pip at the slot receiver position … but that is as a JUCO player in a small JUCO league. We need a slot receiver and have had that need since  Cameron Saddler and Ronald Jones never really panned out, so I like this addition.  I’m just wary of thinking this is the fix we need, especially since we did pretty darn well on offense without one last season.  While his video is impressive it remains to be seen just how well he’ll translate into the big leagues.

Just ask QB Greg Cross.

You remember him don’t you?  The last highly anticipated JUCO who had a rocket for an arm and speed in his legs to burn?  Oh, OK – here is something to jog your memory.  Pay close attention to this part:

Junior College: The nation’s No. 2 junior-college quarterback according to Rivals; rated the No. 2 player overall in the region…Honorable Mention NJCAA All-American…paced the Jayhawk Conference in passing yards (2,127) and total offense (2,529)…accounted for 23 touchdowns (17 passing and six rushing)…ranked third nationally in total offense in the JUCO ranks, averaging 233 yards per game…

But God does that sound good…especially when you are looking at SO Pat Bostick as our backup to Bill Stull.

…and please, before someone starts thinking that DW somehow either misused or overlooked Cross’ talents I’ll say that sitting him down then trying him at WR was one the best personnel decision making DW did in his time at PITT.  Cross was both overblown and under researched.

PITT has gotten transfers in almost every year that I have been closely following the team, since I moved back to the Continental US in 2004 and I’ll say it seems about a 25% chance that transfers see any real meaningful playing time at all.  Vinopal is a guy that did well, Savage did also and they were starters.  But all in all transfers are mostly second go-around kids who have yet to prove anything.

I’m not saying these kids can’t contribute, but just the fact that the staff has offered them scholarships, except for Scarpinato who is a walk-on I believe, means nothing except that this staff is choosing to burn scholarships now on transfers rather than later on HS recruits.

So, is it a good thing to go so heavily into transfers as Narduzzi and staff have done or is it better to recruit and teach according to the over enveloping plan they have for the football program moving forward?  Admittedly I don’t follow the PITT recruiting game like others do, you commenters on here and guys like Chris Dokish do that for me.  I tend to look at the kids we get after we get them and then see how all the parts fit together down the road. I suppose I prefer a well-built foundation that is recruited for the long run. But as we just saw that ‘long run’ might mean Year Four of a five year contract.

However, I do like the idea of getting players who you know have already mastered the off-field stuff some other young players have a hard time with like being away from home, partying distractions,  stricter academics, and being benchwarmers after starring on their HS teams.  That is very important as some, like our dearly departed Adonis Jennings, can’t handle that downgrade.  So we are getting some personal seasoning in the staff’s outreach at least.

So good for Narduzzi I guess, but these actions have no real bearing on whether or not he can recruit well – after all he’s getting other teams’ excess baggage in some measure.  IMO we have to wait until he has his whole 2016 class in the books and on the field before we can declare him a good recruited – now, to me, he’s OK.

Just for a snapshot and because this comes to mind quickest here are the transfers in that I can remember who were on the 2011 season roster.

Get the drift? What is interesting about that list is that three of the transfers had been starters at their other schools yet decided to come to PITT and out of the three only Vinopal, and Graham became starters again with their new team.  Yes, we have had guys like Tom Savage come in but that was a direct recruitment move by Paul Chryst to get a starting QB for the only 2013 season.  But those three guys contributed to wins for us.  The others, not so much.

So, when old Mr. Reality holds up his hand and says “Excuse me, but it is my turn to deal the cards.” sometimes our projections and hopes go right out the window.  More often than not it seems.

In later seasons we had DE Dave Durham and WR Manasseh Garner as starters late in their careers although neither truly made much of an impact. You guys will name some more in your comments I’m sure.  But they, as others, were brought in to fill a void that developed on the roster and needed immediate attention; in other words by coaches who ‘wanted to win now’.  Every coach we have had has used transfers for this same reason and there is nothing unique about this staff with these moves.

I’m all for aggressiveness in a head coach during the off season and we have seen that so far with these coaches.  I also think that recognizing weak spots on the roster and alleviating them in any way possible, position switches, transfers, etc. are good things to do.  I understand that we sometimes find a diamond in the rough. As you guys know I am hoping Nate Peterman may fit that description as soon as this 2015 season as a #2 backup if not a starter at some point.

So this isn’t a shot at the staff for doing those things, the only possible drawbacks I see are using up scholarships early, which is no big deal,  and us fans getting overly excited about these moves before camp even begins.

Silly maybe, but I worry about that because the one thing I have seen from our fans over and over is that they over-hype an issue or individual players/coaches and then when that issue turns out to be just normal, average things they come down hard on the player or staff.  I’ve done the over-hyping but have  tried not to come down too hard on a guy who didn’t meet my expectations as that was my poor judgement .

I’ll follow these roster moves and research the guys they are bringing onboard this season, both via recruiting and transfer but I’ll wait until at least the last week of camp when the starters are chosen, or in most cases a season or two down the road before I give large praise for these actions when we have absolutely no idea if they are good moves or not.

In transferring and recruiting hindsight is absolutely 20/20.