Just by the offers our recent verbal have gotten, it seems as if the 2020 class is off to a way better start than 2019. Is that as accurate?
Haven't been following football recruiting but....
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
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They still can't beat Kentucky for any recruits. They can't beat other SEC schools for any recruits. They still can't beat pedst for any recruits. All of their other power 5 offers weren't commitable.
Other than that it's been fine.
The SEC is a basketball league now so maybe that will bode well for Pitt football.
Hard to say. HCPN always seems to pull in a lot of recruits in June. The only difference I see is that they are getting more high profile players on campus. Need to get some of those to sign up. I do like the offer sheets on some of the recruits though. I don't have the insight to know if they were commitable offers or not.
Henry Parrish had offers from Penn State, Tennessee, Michigan, Iowa, Florida State, and Miami - just to name a few.....
I look into little more than what others research and post here (and i appreciate those efforts). Strictly from how those evals sound, the star levels are still meh, but the players seem to have slightly better competing offers (now, whether they were 'commitable' or not seems a whole other labyrinth).
Really high profile game-changer guys, like we seemed to pull every couple years or so in the past, a Fitz or Shady or even a Boyd or Whitehead, still seem dead to us now though. We don't seem even remotely considered for those any longer. It seems incredibly tightly compartmentalized now. We are in the middle tier lumped with so many others similar to us and top guys simply won't look to that tier.
Blame whatever... blue blood payola, "handlers", a shallow generation sticking with the sure thing ... but recruiting certainly seems to no longer hold much spice for programs like ours any longer. Each year it's whatever 3 star dudes get allocated to us, vs a Syracuse or Maryland or whatever, almost kind of randomly. Yes maybe guys we get might have had some side interest from a Michigan or such, and that's usually better than competing offers of Bowling Green or Akron ... but let's face it, usually if those bigger programs REALLY want a guy, they'll usually get him. We're at the kids table at Thanksgiving ... ... getting the platter passed to us after the adults have taken the bigger white meat pieces ... but it still might be tasty. It's still the leftovers though.
It's lamentable on a casual fan level (and probably to the Pitt PR and marketing staffs). But it's not like those one or two isolated mega players truly elevated us before. It was at least something for the casual fan to focus on though. But in a way it's more honest. Pitt could always get away with the fact that the overall program was lacking, and market McCoy, or Boyd or whomever. And a lot of fans relied on that crutch too. Heard way too many refrains in the stands of "throw it to Larry ... give it to Shady ... come on Tyler". Meanwhile our biggest issues were the core jabronies who couldnt block or tackle anyone.
The coaches and other players might even have subconsciously relaxed too much... let the "star" carry the load. And of course, other than maybe the QB, one guy alone can't lift a football team to elite status. Though we certainly have had guys (Fitz, McCoy, Boyd, Donald) who tried.
Good or bad, having a vanilla roster with anonymous players puts the onus on the whole team to come together, make itself a greater sum of its parts, and provide the onus for attention.
Really high profile game-changer guys, like we seemed to pull every couple years or so in the past, a Fitz or Shady or even a Boyd or Whitehead, still seem dead to us now though. We don't seem even remotely considered for those any longer. It seems incredibly tightly compartmentalized now. We are in the middle tier lumped with so many others similar to us and top guys simply won't look to that tier.
Blame whatever... blue blood payola, "handlers", a shallow generation sticking with the sure thing ... but recruiting certainly seems to no longer hold much spice for programs like ours any longer. Each year it's whatever 3 star dudes get allocated to us, vs a Syracuse or Maryland or whatever, almost kind of randomly. Yes maybe guys we get might have had some side interest from a Michigan or such, and that's usually better than competing offers of Bowling Green or Akron ... but let's face it, usually if those bigger programs REALLY want a guy, they'll usually get him. We're at the kids table at Thanksgiving ... ... getting the platter passed to us after the adults have taken the bigger white meat pieces ... but it still might be tasty. It's still the leftovers though.
It's lamentable on a casual fan level (and probably to the Pitt PR and marketing staffs). But it's not like those one or two isolated mega players truly elevated us before. It was at least something for the casual fan to focus on though. But in a way it's more honest. Pitt could always get away with the fact that the overall program was lacking, and market McCoy, or Boyd or whomever. And a lot of fans relied on that crutch too. Heard way too many refrains in the stands of "throw it to Larry ... give it to Shady ... come on Tyler". Meanwhile our biggest issues were the core jabronies who couldnt block or tackle anyone.
The coaches and other players might even have subconsciously relaxed too much... let the "star" carry the load. And of course, other than maybe the QB, one guy alone can't lift a football team to elite status. Though we certainly have had guys (Fitz, McCoy, Boyd, Donald) who tried.
Good or bad, having a vanilla roster with anonymous players puts the onus on the whole team to come together, make itself a greater sum of its parts, and provide the onus for attention.
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You're WRONG. We are doing much better this year - especially compared to last year.
I believe this will be HC Pat Narduzzi's best class and by a wide margin.
LATE -
I believe this will be HC Pat Narduzzi's best class and by a wide margin.
LATE -
McKee--I believe you nailed it with your assessment. Contributing greatly to us no longer getting the occasional 4-5 star guy (or two or three) as we did in the past seems to be the greatly diminished Pennsylvania, and most especially the local Western PA talent pool where the majority of our past 4-5 star recruits originated in the past.
Hopefully you are right that these recruits are actually mostly Rivals underrated because on paper they are the same 3-star mostly rated 5.5 to 5.6 to 5.7 guys we have been getting over the past few years.
I guess my points always lean too negative for some, but in this case i'm trying to find a silver lining. If overall the team is better position by position than others when we might have had one NFL star but Slippery Rock level guys surrounding him... maybe we'll fare better. Getting that big star here or there might have added some excitement on signing day but we know it didn't get us into the top ten or twenty (hardly at all). That's the prize.
Forget the star ranking and look at the other schools that are on the player's offer sheet. So far, we are ahead of last year when comparing this way. If we pull out another 4-6 before the quiet period we will be on our way to our best class in years. The mass visits over the past 2 years are really paying off! Great idea and execution.
LMAO. Pretty sure it's still football first down south.
The SEC plays basketball because the rest of the country won't play football through the winter.
1. Whether the offers are committable or not, this recent group of commits have other offers that are far better than last year. We had kids commit last June that boasted Toledo as their other best offer.
2. Narduzzi is actually winning some battles. Last year he didn't win many head to head recruiting battles. He just went into Miami and beat the U for a RB. A kid that FSU wanted as well. That's kind of newsworthy.
3. I'm not about to lose sleep over a lack of "stars" in the class. The 2019 class had five or six kids that jumped at Pitt's offer because it was their only P5 offer. 2018 wasn't much better. If this class only ends with one or two of those kids, that's a very small step up.
4. The class is far from being finished. There is some four star level talent still planning to visit. Big OL this weekend. Who knows?
Look, I've ragged on this staff for their recruiting. I get that this won't be a top 20 class. Probably won't be enough kids to sniff the top thirty unless they get some really big wins. Also not about to declare the staff has turned the corner. They're still way behind the rest of the ACC in the number of commits. But for a brief moment, there are reasons to like some of the things you're seeing.
IMO, if we want to reach a point where we can field a top 25 team most years I believe we will need to have enough of each year's recruit class be 4 stars, or 3-stars who are develop-able to a 4-star performance level after a couple of years.
Some of those guys when recruited can either be underrated Rivals 3-stars or 3-stars with a high potential ceiling once they mature physically and as players; but overall, IMHO, a significant portion of the 2-deep roster needs to be able to play at a 4-star performance level if we are to return to being a ranked team and having more than an an 8-win season ceiling.
Of course, this is just my guess as to what is needed for Pitt to get to where being a Pitt FB fan can be enjoyable.
Some of those guys when recruited can either be underrated Rivals 3-stars or 3-stars with a high potential ceiling once they mature physically and as players; but overall, IMHO, a significant portion of the 2-deep roster needs to be able to play at a 4-star performance level if we are to return to being a ranked team and having more than an an 8-win season ceiling.
Of course, this is just my guess as to what is needed for Pitt to get to where being a Pitt FB fan can be enjoyable.
I gotta tell you I am upbeat about the start of this 2020 class as well. Perhaps playing in the ACC title game did get some kids to take notice of the Panthers. Imagine if we would have finished strong, instead of getting crunched by Miami and losing the bowl game.
I think HCPN and the assistants like Collins, Salem, and Partridge have done a nice job selling a vision. I think that vision is a team that will dominate the Coastal and play for ACC titles regularly. Once you win it the first time, you gain credibility with recruits. Also, I think that Coach Narduzzi gets along wonderfully with the players he gets, and is a likeable and good guy. I really think this year couold provide another step in that vision I mentioned above. If we can be at the top of our division and win it quite a bit, to the point where we become a top 25 team, recruiting is going to get even better. This staff needed something to sell, another big season will help them even more.
I think HCPN and the assistants like Collins, Salem, and Partridge have done a nice job selling a vision. I think that vision is a team that will dominate the Coastal and play for ACC titles regularly. Once you win it the first time, you gain credibility with recruits. Also, I think that Coach Narduzzi gets along wonderfully with the players he gets, and is a likeable and good guy. I really think this year couold provide another step in that vision I mentioned above. If we can be at the top of our division and win it quite a bit, to the point where we become a top 25 team, recruiting is going to get even better. This staff needed something to sell, another big season will help them even more.
I agree with this, and perhaps finally staying the course with a coach for the long haul is beginning to give incremental improvements.
Mostly off-topic, I guess, but I watched "A Football Life" on Kevin Greene. He was a walk-on at Auburn, with zero Division I offers. Also, Aaron Donald was one of those guys you refer to - 3 star, 5.7 rating. Just sayin'.
Way way way better. So much better in fact that I am wondering if they can help Capel and the BB program recruit. Because they seem to be doing a much better job.
