Okay. Nothing like late breaking news for a Friday, but…
Quarterback Mark Myers, who had a chance to be Tino Sunseri’s backup this season, is leaving the Pitt football team and hopes to transfer to a Division III school.
Myers’ departure leaves Pitt with three quarterbacks, including freshman Chad Voytik and sophomore Trey Anderson.
Well, nothing like waiting until the last minute. Best of luck to Myers.
Mildly surprised he’s dropping all the way down to D-III. Best guess is he’s moving back to the Cleveland area and will attend one of the many D-III schools — John Carroll, Baldwin-Wallace… That would explain dropping down that far.
That narrows the field of the back-up QB spot to Anderson or Voytik. I really don’t think they are sending Gonzalez back to the QB spot. Voytik’s odds of redshirting just got a little slimmer.
UPDATE: Oh, boy. Left Tackle Juantez Hollins has been suspended for the entire season. For the always nebulous “violation of team policy.” Hollins had also been suspended for the spring game.
Freshman Chris Davis has a suspension for the first week of training camp. He’ll be permitted to join the team on August 12.
Emel – who exactly was stating that Myers was “immobile”? I never did and before last season referenced that Myers was a hurdles runner in HS so he can put one foot in front of the other pretty well.
However, that and $1.67 will get you a cup of coffee when talking about being able to be the running QB Todd Graham wanted leading his offense last season. Myers wasn’t a physical fit for Graham’s offense at all.
I have said that Sunseri is much more mobile than Myers and that is true. Sunseri actually did a fine job when called upon to run the ball last season and his ability to pull the ball down and run, when he isn’t panicked of course, was good also.
If you watched practices (which I have BTW DRW) and talked with people at those practices (which I have also done DRW) you’d have seen that moving around with the football when needed just wasn’t a positive for Myers at all.
DRW – we went around and around ad nauseum last season about Mark Myers and your beliefs about his abilities and chances to get playing time at QB. I believe I was pretty consistent in stating why I didn’t think he’d play last year and why I thought you had overrated his potential since he was recruited to play at PITT. Yet still you cling to the fact that because he was highly rated by ONE of three recruiting services he should be a starter in D1 football.
Well, it doesn’t work that way as we all know. The player himself has to actually practice and play well enough to beat out others who are vying for the same position and Myers couldn’t and didn’t do that. It is pretty simple really. He wasn’t good enough.
Why you seem to be surprised by this fact is a mystery to me because we also saw this happen with an across-the-board much higher rated QB recruit in Pat Bostick. But your arguments about why Myers wasn’t ranked higher aside, the real measure of how valuable a HS recruit is is based on the offers he received from D1 colleges to play football at their schools.
I know your stance on “he already committed to PITT so the other teams backed off” but honestly, that’s a crock.
If Myers was a legit #11 4* QB other schools would have been offering and recruiting him right up to the minute he signed his LOI. That is what happens when a player is of top shelf quality. It wasn’t like he had committed to Alabama or Notre Dame and other schools gave up pursuing him – he committed to PITT for God’s sake, where every coach in the world knew that PITT had the HC’s favorite in Sunseri. That fact alone should have made opposing HCs salivate and nip at Myers heels to decommit BUT THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN AT ALL.
He wasn’t highly recruited because, well… he wasn’t that highly thought of by people who make a living out of taking recruits and making college football players out of them.
As to his transferring – I had a pretty long conversation with Myers’ father before last year’s spring game about how serious they were about transferring at that time. That conversation, and some just plain simple observations about the team dynamics, are the basis for my thoughts about why Myers transferred.
As far as the “kissing Reed’s ass club”, which is rather witty all in all, I get a LOT of push back on things I write on here. I’ll say this, when PITT offered me media credentials a while ago I decided take advantage of that every chance I could to actually get up and watch these kids for a few solid hours at a time. I don’t just see them toss a few balls in pre-game warm ups like most PITT fans do. I drive 4+ hours to stand on the sidelines at practices watching the players try to execute the plays, listen to the interaction between the coaches and the players, listen to the interaction between players themselves, talk with recruit’s and players parents and relatives, and I talk with others who are closer to the program than I and who know a hell of a lot more about PITT football than I do.
OK – that doesn’t impress you and that’s fine because it isn’t meant to. However to think I act solely on ‘rumors’ when I post this stuff just isn’t true. A lot of times I post my opinions on here – that’s what a blog is – but I’ll also say that most of those opinions are formed with a bit of work being done to support them.
