Tuesday was quiet. Too quiet.
No Pitt quarterbacks left for the portal. No portal quarterbacks came to Pitt. And no high school prospects committed.
Kind of a letdown from Monday, wasn’t it?
Just kidding. There was plenty happening, both on the quarterback front and elsewhere with transfers, recruits and more. Let’s dig into it.
The next step at QB
I’ve said this a few times, so forgive me for repeating myself. But the Pitt staff has three goals this postseason when it comes to quarterbacks: get a veteran transfer to come in and be the starter; get a high school prospect to develop; and get a young transfer to be a bridge of sorts.
Obviously the first two spots were filled on Monday with
Phil Jurkovec as the veteran transfer/would-be starter and
Ty Dieffenbach as the high school prospect. So that leaves one.
Who will be the young transfer?
The most prominent name anyone has talked about is
Christian Veilleux. The redshirt freshman transfer from Penn State played in five games for the Nittany Lions over the last two seasons and completed 23-of-35 (65.7%) for 282 yards and three touchdowns. Almost all of that production came in a win over Rutgers last November when he threw for 235 yards and three scores on 15-of-24 passing.
But despite that performance, four-star freshman Drew Allar emerged as the clear backup and heir apparent to Sean Clifford, leaving Veilleux on the outside looking in - and ultimately in the transfer portal.
So far, Veilleux has emerged as Pitt’s top target for the “young transfer” spot. He’s got three years of eligibility left, meaning he can compete for the starting job in 2024 and potentially hold it for two years. Plus he has some college experience, so if he is Jurkovec’s backup this season, he won’t be coming in completely raw.
That said, I think Pitt is still looking at the available young transfers, simply because there are so many of them. When it came to finding a veteran transfer to be the starter, I think offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti honed in on Jurkovec pretty quickly: he was a known commodity, having worked with Cignetti for two years at Boston College, so Cignetti knew what he was getting.
By contrast, I think the coaches are taking more of an “open mind” approach with the young transfer. They like Veilleux a lot - like I said, I think he’s their top target right now - but there are a lot of young quarterbacks in the portal, and with the other two spots filled (the veteran transfer and the high school prospect), they can take their time finding that third piece, with the thought being that they might identify a young transfer they like more than Veilleux.
That said, I think most signs point toward Veilleux joining. I heard over the weekend that he was likely to visit this coming weekend; I imagine the staff will make a decision on who to pursue in the next day or two, and if it’s Veilleux, they’ll likely bring him in this weekend and land him.
One last thing with Veilleux: it’s pronounced VAY-air.
The one other piece to the quarterbacks is
Nate Yarnell. I remember having a conversation at midseason and hearing about how much Yarnell likes it at Pitt, which seemed to make him less likely to enter the transfer portal. But there are rumors growing about his intentions this offseason, as more and more sources are saying he’s leaning toward leaving.
It’s not entirely difficult to understand. Yarnell is watching as the quarterback room gets completely remade, with him as the lone holdover from the 2022 group. In an ideal world, he would stay, try to win the backup role this spring and then compete for the starting job in 2024. But if he feels like he’s not going to get a legitimate shot at those roles - or if he just wants to get closer to home - then I could see him leaving, and that’s what rumors seem to be indicating.
Those are just rumors for now, and if Yarnell does intend to leave, I don’t think he has shared that with the Pitt coaches at this point. But it’s something to watch.
A new transfer WR offer
There are more positions in the transfer portal than just quarterbacks, and we’ve seen some targets emerge this week.
The newest one is Florida receiver
Daejon Reynolds. He tweeted an offer from Pitt receivers coach Tiquan Underwood on Tuesday night, and he’s certainly an intriguing target. A four-star prospect from Georgia in the class of 2021, Reynolds blew up during his junior season, catching 88 passes for 1,534 yards and 14 touchdowns. He didn’t play his senior season (2020) due to injury and played just in one game as a freshman at Florida. This season, he played in eight games and caught 11 passes for 239 yards and two touchdowns.
His breakout game came in mid-November when he had eight receptions for 165 yards and two scores.
You only have to watch about 20 seconds of the highlights from that game before you’ll start being impressed with Reynolds.
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Pitt’s pursuit of Reynolds is still in the early stages. Mississippi State offered before the Panthers did, and I’m sure more schools will get involved. But we’ll see what we can dig up on his interest in Pitt.
Continued...
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