It’s here. The year long sprint is reaching its end. Pitt looks to finish strong. Maybe a couple final flourishes with some announcements at 9:30 am and 3 pm. Finding out if Pitt has a last minute flip away *cough* Chase Pine *cough*. And hey, there’s cake.
When I asked [Gateway (Fla.) High School coach Marlin] Roberts about Gateway cornerback Henry Miller, who is committed to Pitt but considering Miami, Roberts said he expected him to sign with Pitt:
“If not, it’s going to be an awkward ceremony. I’ve already ordered blue and gold balloons and a blue and gold cake,” he said.
Awkward would be the right word.
Coach Pat Narduzzi will hold his press conference — where he can officially talk about the recruits at last — at 3pm.
The NLIs can be faxed in to Pitt starting at 7:00 am. The Pitt football twitter and/or Narduzzi’s twitter should be on top of that as always, so just open a tab (or two) — regardless of whether you use twitter — if you want to follow along.
I’ll do my best to keep a running list with the when and who.
For the record. RB Chawntez Moss, DE Patrick Jones and transfer TE Chris Clark are already enrolled and taking classes at Pitt, so they won’t be on the list.
Whee.
7:00 — QB Thomas MacVittie is first in.
7:04 — OL Brandon Ford is next first up with the big tech leap of using e-mail rather than a fax (he got his in ahead of MacVittie — just MacVittie’s dad made it known on twitter that his son was faxing first).
7:13 — OL Justin Morgan
7:22 — DE Zack Gilbert
7:27-7:51 — Taking kid to school.
7:51 — While out, ATH Phil Campbell sent his in.
As did Bryce Hargrove, rocking one hell of a sportscoat.
Worth noting, the Central Catholic kids — Damar Hamlin, Rashad Wheeler and Bricen Garner — will be signing their NLI’s at approximately 9:45.
Aaron Mathews will be signing his NLI at 1pm.
8:09 — Whoops. Looks like the 1pm ceremony will be symbolic. WR Aaron Mathews has his NLI in to Pitt.
8:12 — OL Zack Williams
8:27 — DB Therran Coleman has checked the box.
8:37 — LB Elias Reynolds has come in from the cold.
8:40-9:22 — Drop off other kid. Drive to work.
9:22 — Missed a lot.
LB Bruce Garner sent over his NLI
Cake for everyone as CB Henry Miller made it official.
LB Kaezon Pugh represents for the ‘Quip.
WR Ruben Flowers is in.
And this is one of the big ones. DT Keyshon Camp made Pitt his choice. Great late get.
9:28 — 2 more for the lines.
DL Amir Watts
OL Zack Williams
9:30 — Rashad Wheeler is go. One more from Central Catholic.
10:11 CB Damar Hamlin has finished the trifecta.
Now just waiting for Chase Pine and George Hill. Plus Weaver ‘ decision at 3pm.
Note, paperwork isn’t in on Hamlin yet to make it official, but…
10:28 — In the meantime, LB Chase Pine sticks with Pitt after some extra drama.
10:32 — Bonus news. Pitt football just announced that DE Ejuan Price was officially granted a 6th year by the NCAA.
11:16 — RB George Hill has signed. All verbal are signed.
Barring anything weird, next update should be around 3 pm when Rashad Weaver makes his decision.
If you’re not feeling it, just wait till the upcoming four game series is underway.
Pitt leveled the playing field for the first time in decades…
realistically Ped State will get their coaching together and will always be a strong program…
Yet Pitt it back… not 6 years back… we mean going back to Jack Sherrill (sp) back!!! … potentially…. decades.
Their obession with us far exceeds some good jabs here today. Because their perception reality has been destroyed but they still don’t admit it yet.
So 3 coaches hired from WPIAL… need to hire 3 more… haha.
WE HATE PENN STATE BECAUSE:
– They have been our in-state rival for 150 years.
– They are a cult in the middle of nowhere which sits upon thousands of acres of cow manure and nothing else.
– These cult members are delusional, arrogant, self righteous farmers who think they are better than everyone else.
– Their former cult leader of all-time (poopy pants Joe) enabled, housed, covered up, and ignored a vicious sexual child predator who feasted on young, innocent, under privileged boys for not days, not weeks, not months, BUT for YEARS – turning his back to this shear EVIL and not doing anything about it because his glory and the glory of the cult would suffer.
– and finally, as a former PSU grad told me years ago: “99% of all college girls are beautiful, the other 1% go to Penn State…
Awesome photo courtesy of Coach Harley..
2nd, any Pitt fan that doesn’t fully appreciate the “running of the table” that Narduzzi & Co. accomplished today, unfortunately has missed a landmark occasion. This day will produce at least a half dozen future highlight reels on college players destined for the pros.
3rd, It’s time to start challenging your friends, relatives, coworkers and neighbors who call themselves football fans. This is Pittsburgh. The city that possesses six Lombardi Trophies! We know football, we appreciate good football, we support winners. Well then get on board because Narduzzi is producing a product worth it’s metal to such a football savy fanbase. Get off your a$$ and go sit in one of those yellow seats at Heinz Field on some home game Saturdays. You will be in for some quality college football. This program now deserves your support!
Hail to Pitt!
If you look at the stadium, one of my offices is in there. I can walk to you easily.
Great day for Pitt football. Congrats to our Chancellor, AD and especially all of the coaches. Will be hard to keep these guys but it sure feels good to be on the right side of the recruiting effort. And…we already have a 4 star and 3 star next year. Thorpe, Jeter and Adams are 3 more 4 stars that put us over the top!
Besides the above mentioned points, if you really want to know what I think of PSU………..
Scout 27th
Rivals 28th
247Sport 30th
ESPN 31st
Good class – very nice effort by our coaching staff.
HTP!
Scout 4th
Rivals 5th
247Sport 4th
ESPN 5th
The ACC is averaging a ranking of 3rd among P5 conferences.
HTP!
A great day in Pitt Football history. Great new players with a great staff to coach them. Cannot wait for 9/10 and the pedophile invasion.
In a snap a major weakness turns into a future strength. Probably two of these three see the field this year, Camp, Watts or Wheeler.
UPitt, congrats on Miss Estonia. I knew it was more than the recruiting class responsible for your fountain of positivity.
And congratulations to the 25 young men who have chosen to represent the Univ. of Pittsburgh on the football field for the next 3,4,5 years. Here’s to fulfilling your dreams.
The rankings were somewhat impressive to me – not Harbaugh impressive, but non the less it feels like a big surge upward for Pitt FB after 30 some years of average at best results.
HTP!
H2P!
Regardless of that, I really like what Pitt did in this class.
Chris Dokish ?@ChrisDokish 6 hours ago
Sounds like Narduzzi just said George Hill may start out on offense.
Wade is very much in the picture. Can you imagine him & Hamlin at the corners?
Yeah Dino…leave the women and children at the farm for that one….lol.
Pitt vs Penn State… Culture vs Agriculture
And another favorite…
Directions to Penn State: Go east until you smell it, go north until you step in it.
Good memories?
Pitt vs Penn State… Culture vs Agriculture
And another favorite…
Directions to Penn State: Go east until you smell it, go north until you step in it.
Good memories?
Plus most comments are a sentence long with little substance beyond sophomoric comments with tagged pictures to match often in reply to other juvenile comments left on the board. Seriously, I had to wade through about 40 comments before I read one multiple sentence, somewhat intelligent comment about the best recruit in PA, that was the subject of the article in the first place.
It’s like a bunch of middle school kids victimized with bad cases of ADD over there in creepy valley. Really kinda sad actually. Hopefully Miles Sanders won’t read that, because if he doe’s he’ll just end up shaking his head while wondering, “why did I come here again”? He deserves a lot more respect than those dicks gave him in the comments section, that’s all I know.
Surprise players for the Panthers next season? Any thoughts?
Personally I’m all in for a breakout season for our new DE Hendrix. He will be a beast. I’m still high on Allen Edwards too, same as last season. I gave him props them even though he never saw the field as he integrated into Narduzzi’s system while continuing to bulk up in muscle. Allen will also contribute at the other DE spot. Less we forget about Price who was just granted a sixth year. He came into his own last season and will only be getting better this fall. As for the middle of the D line either Watts or Camp will break into the two deep for immediate playing time. And really as thin as thin as we were at that spot maybe both will burn their Freahmen RS. That will all depend on Connor Dintino though. If he is ready to contribute, which he should be then it will be difficult for both Freshmen to play this coming season.
Needless to say Hamlin sees the field a lot this season, and I think Miller does too. If these two guys are as good as their highlight reels show, Maddox may soon see his time on the field relegated to kick returns and special teams.
Now that Boyd is gone I suspect Ford to really blossom this year. He is a reliable receiver and I like his YAC stats. And speaking of blossoming, Flowers will be a surprise contributor this year too. He is a real talent!
What will be no surprise is how solid our OL will be, with Smith back and another year of experience from all of the returning guys, that group should be special.
Yeah, Penn State is going to own us in that early September game at Heunz we don’t have a prayer, wink, wink.
It will be our veteran OL with Ollie and Hall (can’t count on Conner right now) toting the ball. They apparently have a good DB and our receiving corp (especially in Sept) may not strike fear into anyone’s hearts (Orndoff is really good.)
Barkley is the biggest offensive threat on either team going into the game, but they have a new starting QB. Our defense will be much more quicker but inexperienced in many places. I’m hoping that Hendrix lives up to his billing because with him and Price at DEs, it can create some havoc.
Early prediction … low scoring game.
Of course, that is just one rating system … some of the above in other rating systems are not even 40-stars so who knows?
