Here is a post I had in draft form and forgot to put up.  I did it before that “Art of Recruiting” series of last week.  Discuss-able info as far as stars awarded and Pitt player – present and past.

This is an interesting list I think.  As I was looking up the All-Americans I also jotted down the lower rated kids who have become either stars or real solid producers for us.

Here is the top few from as far back as I could find recruiting listings for (by year):

Here is a very strange article by Cardiac Hill that, as far as I can tell, doesn’t impart any real info… but interesting numbers none the less.

Chris Dokish has some good info on what he considers needs and wants for the roster in the future.  Chris is pretty knowledgeable about recruiting (before the kid sets foot on a football field in a Pitt uniform) so I enjoyed reading this.  I don’t necessarily agree with this part though but then again it has been a while since Pitt has had an above average QB behind center.

So when he says Pitt “Pitt’s program can go far with a good quarterback” I have to scratch my head.  We haven’t “gone far” in a decade.

Not to much too much pressure on him, but it’s not an understatement to say that the success of the Pat Narduzzi era pretty much depends on the success of MacVittie. Of course there’s always a chance that somebody else comes in out of the blue, and that someone could be either someone on the roster already, or not on the roster currently, but as of now it pretty much comes down to MacVittie. Pickett could also turn into a very good quarterback but that’s at least three years down the road. Pitt’s program can go far with a good quarterback but an All-American quarterback can take them to a completely different level.

 ESPN has a lot of ‘filler’ articles during the offseason- here is a piece talking about Pitt and Miami’s offenses…

Phil Steele released his annual ranking of returning offensive line starts earlier this week, with a number of ACC teams faring well. Add that with production at the skill positions, however, and two teams truly stand out.

In fact, look around the entire country, and only two Power 5 programs return a QB who threw for 2,000 yards, a running back who topped 1,000 yards, a receiver with at least 500 yards and 60 or more starts on the offensive line. Those two teams: Pittsburgh and Miami.

That in-quote reference to Phil Steele’s Offensive Line Starts is here and lists Pitt as the #12 team with the most OL starts returning with 99.  I guess that is exciting and is why everyone and their brother seems to think our OL will be fantastic this season (especially Pitt fans) but I do wonder.

I seem to remember that fans were pretty excited about the OL at this time last off season also.  But the bald fact is that we gave up 29 sacks last season (73rd nationally) for a loss of 196 yards. Granted that isn’t the horrendous sack totals we saw in season just a few years ago, but every time we get excited about our OL it seems to come up short.

OC Matt Canada is going to go long in the passing games this season – therefore Peterman has to have more time to get the ball downfield.  If not we’ll be looking at the same results in the passing game as we had last season and that won’t be sufficient.

Oh yeah – one of our recruits took off; 3* DB Exree Loe.

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