Fellow Lairsmen and women. A412 is doing a Tailgate from 1-3pm Saturday. Should be a great time. Stop over and meet the folks who are trying to keep Pitt relevant in this changing landscape. They need all of us now more than ever at any level of giving to take Pitt to the next level in all sports, but primarily Football 🏈 . Here’s the link:
https://www.alliance412.com/membership
See y’all Saturday
H2P!

He also got upgraded to a 4 star player and is now the 104th nationally ranked player in 247's updated rankings. That's now the 4th top 150 nationally rated ranking Witherspoon has made in the updated rankings.

A nice first commit for Jeff Capel and the future team.

Welcome to Pitt and the Pitt family, Omari!!!

Here are 10 notable numbers for Pitt as the Panthers move into Week Three of the 2024 season.

1 - That’s Desmond Reid’s spot nationally in all-purpose yards. He leads all players in the country with 488 all-purpose yards - 293 rushing, 117 receiving and 78 on punt returns - to average 244 yards per game. Only one other player (Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty is averaging more than 200 all-purpose yards per game).

27.4 - That’s the percentage of Pitt’s offense that Reid has accounted for. The Panthers have gained 1,068 yards in two games and Reid has produced 410 of them. He is the team’s leading rusher, of course, but he’s also second in receptions and receiving yards and he has scored three of the Panthers’ 10 touchdowns this season.

0 - That’s the number of players in Pitt history to produce 100 or more rushing yards and 100 or more receiving yards in a single game. That changed on Saturday when Reid ran for 148 yards and caught six passes for 106 yards.

2 - That’s the number of players in FBS so far in 2024 with 100+ rushing yards and 100+ receiving yards. Reid is one of those two; Northern Illinois running back Antario Brown is the other. Brown has rushed for 168 yards and put up 171 receiving yards.

3 - That’s the number of 300-yard games produced by Pitt’s quarterbacks in the last two seasons since Kenny Pickett did it eight times in 2021. Eli Holstein has hit the 300-yard mark in both games this season, and his 302-yard performance at Cincinnati on Saturday was the first time a Pitt quarterback threw for 300+ in a road win since Pickett threw for 416 and three touchdowns to win at Duke in November 2021.

11/5 - Those are Holstein’s rankings nationally and in the ACC in passing yards per game. He has averaged 319 yards per game through two starts; only Syracuse’s Kyle McCord (367.5), Miami’s Cam Ward (344.5), Wake Forest’s Hank Bachmeier (333) and Virginia’s Anthony Colandrea (327) have higher averages in the conference.

4 - That’s how many 100-yard receiving games Konata Mumpfield has in his career after catching five passes for 123 yards and two touchdowns in the win at Cincinnati on Saturday. His previous three 100-yard games all came in 2021 when he was a freshman at Akron, and his 123 yards against the Bearcats set a new career high.

2,000 - That’s the career level both Reid and Mumpfield reached with their performances on Saturday. Reid’s 148 rushing yards put him over the 2,000-yard mark for his career; he now has 2,075 career rushing yards. And Mumpfield went over 2,000 receiving yards and currently has 2,057 career receiving yards. Mike Shanahan is currently No. 10 in Pitt history with. 2,276 career receiving yards, which is in reach for Mumpfield (although he has only produced 1,306 receiving yards in a Pitt uniform; he had 751 as a freshman at Akron).

67 - That’s the difference between Pitt’s national ranking in total offense after two games this season versus last season. Two games into the 2023 season, Pitt was No. 79 in total offense, averaging 376.5 yards per game. This season, the Panthers are No. 12 and averaging 534 yards per game. Pitt’s 2023 offense would finish at No. 114 on the season with an average of 317.9 yards per game. The Panthers are also 29 spots higher in scoring offense than they were at this point last season: this year, they are No. 25 while averaging 41.5 points per game; last year after two games, they were No. 54 while averaging 33 points per game).

25.6 - That’s the percentage of drop-backs on Saturday when Cincinnati blitzed Eli Holstein, as the Bearcats preferred to drop into coverage most of the day. This week’s opponent, West Virginia, blitzed just 30.8% of the time against Albany on Saturday, but against Penn State in Week One, the Mountaineers blitzed 63.6% of the time.

This message now appears on the main Pitt team store website.
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My garden season is coming to a close. Did pretty well with a pantry stocked with jars full of tomatoes and pickled jalapenos, some dried chili peppers and about a kilo of hops. Carrots, greens and beets did well too. Can't wait for next summer.
What do you grow, and are you successful at it?

Pitt hasn't landed a Fargo champion in more than 20 years. Here's my story on why rising junior Elijah Brown chose the Panthers just weeks after he burst onto the national scene:
https://pittsburgh.rivals.com/news/fargo-champ-brown-is-a-rare-commit-for-pitt

Not a big or overly meaningful change. I was taking a look at the athletic department staff directory today for, uh, obvious and non-basketball related reasons, and noticed that Jacalyn Murphy, who has been the men’s and women’s basketball nutritionist since 2022, is no longer at Pitt, and appears to have been hired by the Utah Jazz.

In her place is Dolapo Balogun, who was most recently the dietician for the basketball programs at IMG Academy. Prior to that, she was at the University of San Francisco, where she was the women’s Director of Operations and dietician after having finished her basketball career there.

I know that the Diazes-Graham both praised Murphy for helping them put on weight, so let’s hope that continues with the new hire!

It is 13-9 in New Zealand today! I am happily writing that date over and over in chart notes today.
Let's beat those Hoopies this weekend.

I saw two interesting lists today:

1) One was a list of top performing QBs from Week 2. Three out of the Top 10 were the QBs from Clemson, Cuse, Louisville, who we all play this season. Every year it seems we play 3-4 of the top 15 QBs in the nation. I know you want to play good competition and all, but out of 134 FBS starting QBs, how do we always draw 3-4 of the top ones every season?

2) The other list was an ACC power rankings after two weeks of the season. We play NONE of the 5 lowest team in the conference (FSU, NC State, Wake, Stanford, VA Tech). On paper, our schedule looks soft with Cuse, BC, Cal, etc. but of course they are all seeming to being having strong squads this year. Next year when we play FSU, they will be rolling again, NC State will be strong....and UNC & UVA, who don't play for the first time in years, will have their worst seasons in a decade. Just watch.

He would check a lot of boxes for me if this were 2019 but I'm not sure I want someone with a college athletics background. We dont need an "administrator." We need a salesman. Maybe Bowman is that too???

What are everyone's thoughts on what the team will look like next season?

I know we don't know the answer to this question but I'm asking anyone who may have a gestimment that makes sense


But hypothically we cut diving baseball and lacrosse


I know football n basketball get the most

N I'm sure volleyball would get the 3rd most

How much do you geuss those 3 cuts would make n with that figure

What % goes to what

Also How much $ do yinz think it would take to keep the volleyball team going as strong as it is

Cause this 1st set i just watched is some really really great TV and it's so entertaining

I'd be devastated if we couldn't find a way to keep this shit rolling

Ish has been posting these videos to YouTube for a while now, but I saw this tonight and thought I should post it here. Shows you the kind of kid that he is - I think he’s going to be in for a really, really big year in 2024-25.

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This week?

It's time for another Mailbag, so post your questions about Pitt football, basketball, recruiting and anything else in this thread and we'll answer them in this week's Mailbag on Friday.

Thanks as always for participating in the Mailbag.

Better than week 1... more drama for sure, but felt like they could have pushed the drama further in the first half.

Cool halftime locker room shots though - I always appreciate seeing how the coaches handle those intimate moments on game day.

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The more I listen to him talk. The more I realize he has a tremendous future. I see him as a head coach in the not to distant future.

He has the football IQ that coaches like Lincoln Riley and other great offensive minds showed at the same age.

Me personally would love to see Nards hand off the keys to this program to Bell if and when he decides to hang up the keys.

Brawl talk today

Brawl Mentioned