Welcome back to another edition of In the Pitt. It’s been awhile since we dropped 3,000 or so words of knowledge on Pitt recruiting, but with Signing Day 2011 finally in the past, now seems like as good a time as any.
Top of the Pitt
Well, it’s certainly been an interesting two months, hasn’t it?
I’ve been working for this site since January of 2005, and I can safely, without hesitation, say that this has been the craziest two-month period in my career. Obviously much of that is tied up in Pitt’s exhausting game of dueling coaching searches, but that saga would merit an entire In the Pitt of its own, so let’s stick to the last three weeks and the whirlwind that was Todd Graham’s first recruiting class.
Seriously, by the time I sat down for a beer Wednesday night after the Signing Day press conference, I thought of that line from Goodfellas when Lorraine Bracco says she felt like she was drunk from meeting so many people in such a short amount of time at their wedding reception; that’s what covering Pitt’s recruiting was like in the last three weeks:
Seemingly every day, a new name popped up as having Pitt interest or a Pitt offer or taking a visit to Pitt.
Even on Signing Day, names were still popping up (hello, Justin Jackson). To say it was a never-ending grind would be a bit of an understatement.
But now it’s over. The three-week dash to Signing Day has concluded, so I thought we’d sit back, collect our thoughts, and try to figure out exactly what happened.
The mad dash
By now, you know what Pitt’s recruiting class looks like:
- 20 total recruits
- 6 defensive backs
- 4 running backs
- 3 wide receivers
- 3 linebackers
- 2 offensive linemen
- 1 defensive lineman
- 1 tight end
And those recruits came from all over the place, originating from Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, Maryland, New York, Washington, D.C., and, of course, Pennsylvania.
But here’s the thing to keep in mind (and I think most understand this):
Todd Graham and his staff had three weeks (two, really) to do two years’ worth of work.
That’s the key element. That’s what has to be considered in any evaluation of the class. And even though Graham and his staff had prior relationships with almost all of the recruits in the class, they still had to work to convince those kids that now Pitt was the best option after spending the last two years convincing them how good of an option Tulsa was or Michigan was.
That’s not an easy task. But with that caveat in mind, I think Graham and his staff did a pretty good job.
Running back was obviously a major concern, since Pitt enters spring camp with exactly one back on scholarship. So Graham signed four. We all know Malcolm Crockett; he had quite a few offers, but the former Pitt staff decided not to pursue him. If nothing else, Graham added much-needed bodies to the running back depth, and at least two, if not three, of those recruits will have to play this season.
The other major area of focus was defensive back, and Graham filled that position out, too. I really like the potential of Lafayette Pitts was a great pickup, even if it came with a fair amount of drama.
I think there’s interesting upside with a big receiver like Justin Jackson, and a good contrast with smaller speedsters Devin Cook looks like a good fit for Pitt’s new defense.
Overall, I think it’s a pretty solid class for what Graham and company had to work with in terms of time constraints and the difficult situation of stepping in after one coach was dismissed and the replacement was fired for domestic battery. That’s not quite an impossible scenario, but it’s pretty close.
I like that Graham attempted to shoot the moon a little, too. Granted, he didn’t land Chris Bryan, but he at least made the effort. And while moral victories ring pretty hollow, it says something about Graham and his staff that they were able to convince those three to take official visits and all on short notice.
The ones that got away
Of course, there’s also the matter of those 12 recruits who committed to Pitt last summer and fall but decided not to give Pitt another chance, and no discussion of this recruiting class would be complete without addressing that topic.
I’ve never seen anything like the exodus that took place in this recruiting class. 17 recruits were committed to Pitt in the fall (we’re not counting Andre Givens, who fell off the map), and just five of them ended up signing with the Panthers. Of the other 12:
- 3 signed with Rutgers
- 2 signed with Penn State
- 1 each signed with Iowa, West Virginia, Northwestern, Texas Tech, Virginia Tech, Toledo, and Cincinnati
Even other schools who went through coaching changes didn’t experience that kind of mass defection. Of course, Pitt’s situation was very unique: almost all of the commits were willing to listen to Mike Haywood and give him a chance, but when the second coaching change happened, they all started looking around. It was just too late in the process to expect recruits to stand by and wait for Pitt to hire another coach.
But there’s more to it than just the unique scenario, and I’ve come to realize that it has a lot to do with how the former staff recruited. I thought this quote from recruiting coordinator Tony Gibson was pretty interesting:
“The surprising thing was how many kids didn’t even listen.”
What I’ve found is that, more often than not, the former staff was recruiting on relationships rather than recruiting kids to Pitt. Relationships are always a big part of recruiting, and the former Pitt staff probably drew on that more than anything.
So when that staff left - and a major death knell to the former construction of the class was the departure of all assistant coaches - most of the recruits had little connection to Pitt. Sure, most of the recruits talked about the city and the school and the facilities and all of that when they originally committed, but the reality of the situation is that the staff used relationships to get kids to pick Pitt.
And it was an effective strategy. Pitt had a pretty strong recruiting class built in the fall, and it was almost entirely built on the strength of the relationships between the assistant coaches and the recruits. But when those assistants are no longer part of the football program, then the strongest connection for the recruits is gone.
This wasn’t a problem at places like Michigan, Florida, and Miami this offseason because those programs are draws in and of themselves. Pitt isn’t that kind of draw, for a variety of reasons. As such, the coaching staff had to recruit differently than a coach at Michigan or Florida or Miami would recruit, and the result was that there was little connection for the recruits to the University when the coaching staff left.
The other result of that situation is that, when Pitt assistants take other jobs, the relationships are still intact, making for open season on the recruits who were committed to Pitt. That’s why three of Jeff Hafley’s four commitments switched from Pitt to Rutgers and Hafley and Frank Cignetti nearly got Pitts to go to Rutgers, too.
The way the scenario was set up from the start and then unfolded created a perfect storm for Rutgers to take a bunch of Pitt’s commitments. Pitt still wanted Max Issaka and Marquise Wright and Gary Nova, but there was virtually no chance because of the way the recruitment was set up.
That’s probably the ultimate lesson behind the defections from this recruiting class: the foundation for those defections was laid a long time ago.
Connecting points
We’ll get back to the class in a minute, but here seems like as good a time as any to sidetrack for a minute into a popular theme/topic.
The recruiting defections and the loss of a class that was shaping up to be the best one Dave Wannstedt signed during his time at Pitt naturally led to some questions about the relationship between the fallout and the decision to fire Wannstedt.
I’ve heard it phrased as such: Steve Pederson failed to fully consider and understand the implications of his decision to make a coaching change, and his lack of foresight cost Pitt a great recruiting class.
This has to be addressed, and there’s a simple concept that must be understood. Most understand this (I think), but some do not. Either way, it has to be expressed.
Steve Pederson evaluated the progress of the program and came to the conclusion that Dave Wannstedt was not going to lead Pitt to a place where it would enjoy real, sustained success on a consistent basis. And while I’ll refrain from offering my own opinion on the subject, I think there’s a fair amount of evidence to support that conclusion. I’m not talking about 27 wins over three seasons; I’m talking about falling short of a winnable Big East championship three years in a row. I’m talking about failing to get a win against a beatable Connecticut team and then getting run out of the stadium by your rival the next week (which, incidentally, was the second blowout home loss of the season on a nationally-televised game; in the Miami and WVU games, Pitt was outscored 66-13).
I think Pederson looked at the situation and said, “I believe this program can operate at a higher level, and I do not believe Dave Wannstedt is capable of accomplishing that.” Agree or disagree, that’s the conclusion Pederson came to, and it’s within the parameters of his job to draw that conclusion.
If you are an Athletic Director and you draw that conclusion, then you have to follow through with the necessary moves. You cannot - cannot - be motivated by a recruiting class. You have to do what you believe is best for the program, and if a coaching change is what you believe to be best, then you have to make that happen. Losing a recruiting class is collateral damage and an acceptable loss in what you’re hoping to accomplish.
So while everyone would have liked to see Belton and Wright and all of those players at Pitt, you cannot justify staying with a head coach who you do not believe in simply to hold on to a handful of very good recruits.
McKeesport
2011 wasn’t a very strong year for WPIAL recruits. Pitt managed to get one of the top two recruits locally, but missed out on arguably the best prospect in the area and his teammate, who was one of the other strong local prospects.
Of course I’m talking about McKeesport’s Branden Jackson. Simmons signed with North Carolina and Jackson signed with Texas Tech.
There is a fair amount of disagreement about the upside with Jackson, so I’m going to focus on Simmons, who is a better prospect and emerged as one of the top defensive tackles in the country this year. But despite his considerable ability and status as a national recruit, Simmons seemed to view Pitt as an after-thought. So how does that happen?
Quite frankly, it was a blunder by the former coaching staff. I don’t want to hammer those guys now that they’re gone, but they made a considerable error with Simmons. Throughout spring camp, McKeesport head coach Jim Ward brought Jackson and Simmons to a number of practices in order to get them in front of the Pitt coaches. But supposedly the junior film of both players didn’t do much for the coaching staff, so they held off in offering either one.
By the time the June prospect and passing camps rolled around, Simmons and Jackson had picked up about 10 offers each, but neither had one from Pitt, who finally offered in late June. But a week after Pitt offered Simmons and Jackson, Marquise Wright committed to the Panthers. The Pitt staff only wanted to take one defensive tackle in the class, so they backed off both McKeesport players.
Fast-forward seven months, and Simmons is one of the best players at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl and has his choice of colleges from across the country.
Essentially, it was an error-filled process for Pitt.
From the start, there was no reason to hold off as long as they did before offering. Sure, maybe Simmons’ film didn’t wow the coaching staff, but in Simmons you have a player with size and athletic ability, and he’s from McKeesport, a strong Class AAAA program that continually turns out Division I prospects.
To me, that alone is reason enough to offer. But Pitt held off until at least 10 other schools had pulled the trigger.
Then, a week later, Pitt backs off again. And I think that was another gaffe. Perhaps they only wanted one defensive tackle, and perhaps they liked Marquise Wright a lot (and some will tell you Simmons is a better prospect than Wright). But here again, you’ve got a local player with a lot of potential, and even if you already have a defensive tackle on board, it’s still worth going after Simmons. Aren’t we talking about a head coach who has seen some of his best offensive linemen come from the defensive tackle position?
Simmons insisted on not playing offensive guard, and that’s fine; you can recruit both Simmons and Wright as defensive tackles and figure out what to do with them when they get to school.
Of course, ultimately it’s probably a moot point, since Simmons was set on playing in a 4-3 defense and likely wouldn’t have been attracted to Pitt’s new odd-man front, so maybe I should just save my breath.
Texas Tech
There’s a segue in going from a discussion of the McKeesport kids to some thoughts on Texas Tech, who came into western Pennsylvania and signed Jackson and Desimon Green. Like most, I had to do a double-take when those guys first started talking about Texas Tech last summer, since I had never heard of Texas Tech recruiting this area. A quick search of the Rivals database shows that Tech had not signed a player from Pennsylvania in any class dating back to 2002. In fact, Tech rarely left the state of Texas and almost never went north of Kansas.
But here were the Red Raiders, making a serious play for - and ultimately signing - kids from Clairton and McKeesport. What gives?
So I asked Green and Jackson that very question, and I got strikingly similar answers regarding Texas Tech and Robert Prunty, who was the lead recruiter for those two.
From Jackson:
”A lot of schools just want you as a football player, and that’s fine because at the end of the day it’s a business and you’re there to win games. But, there’s another side of it.
“They made sure that they got in touch with my family, and I’m a family-based man. Without my family, I wouldn’t be here, so I feel like, if you take me, you’re taking my family, too.
“Even when I was on my visit, besides the fact that we watched a little film, we never talked football. They’d call me and be like, ‘Jets or Steelers?’ or ‘Green Bay or the Steelers?’ It was never about what I oculd do for them as a player. It was always like, ‘How’s life? Did you go to church? Did you read your bible?’ Things like that, and that’s what stood out.”
From Green:
“With [Prunty], it’s not about football. I know I’m athletic; if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be in this situation. But he was more about taking care of me and my life after college, the degree and stuff like that. With everybody else, it was football, football, football.”
That was the angle, and it might sound familiar: Prunty came into western Pennsylvania and played the relationship card. He worked to establish the strongest relationship with the recruits and used the relationship to draw them 2,000 miles away from home to a city (Lubbock) that doesn’t sound appealing in an area of a state (west Texas) that has a reputation for being vast emptiness.
Pitt may have more going for it as a school and a city, but Prunty and the former assistants basically used the same formula to get recruits: Come play here and we’ll all do this together. We’re in this together.
The gist of it? It’s about the relationships far more than the school.
So Green and Jackson signed with Texas Tech. It will be interesting to monitor their progress in Lubbock.
Odds and ends
- One area largely missing from the recruiting class is the offensive line. Pitt signed two linemen, but it’s not an overwhelming group. Some have set this up as an oversight on the part of the coaching staff, but I don’t think it’s much of a surprise.
Truth is, the last coaching staff didn’t plan to load up on offensive linemen in this class because there just wasn’t much in Pitt’s recruiting area to choose from. However, the class of 2012 is strong with offensive linemen in the natural recruiting area, and Pitt already had some good relationships built with the current juniors. I think the new staff decided to take a similar approach; now we’ll just have to see if they can entice the 2012 standouts, of which there are quite a few.
- Jeff Hafley became a favorite recruiter Pitt fans due to his endless energy and ambition. Now fans should watch Mike Norvell, the receivers coach, co-offensive coordinator, and director of recruiting (which is apparently different from recruiting coordinator). I see the same endless energy and drive in Norvell that I saw in Hafley: they’re both young, they both seem to always be striving to work harder, and they both have done well in recruiting.
Wednesday was the first time I have seen Norvell since the day Todd Graham was hired; he’s been on the road ever since (although I believe he was around during the official visits). Graham instantly put Norvell to work on locking up recruits in the southeast, and he did a fairly good job given the time he had to work with.
- Todd Graham made sure to offer well-wishes to all the recruits who signed with schools other than Pitt on Wednesday. Recruiting coordinator Tony Gibson wasn’t quite so heartfelt, particularly with regards to the recruits who had previously been committed to Pitt.
“That was the first thing we did: we tried to call everybody that was committed here. But if they don’t want to be at Pitt, that’s shame on them. We’re going to get it done here and they’re going to regret their decision in another year or so. The kids that we got, we love them and we can’t wait to start coaching them. They’re going to be able to fit in with our players and they’re going to be here for one reason: because they love the University of Pittsburgh. And that’s what it’s all about.”
- So yeah, this article, the connection was that Jackson goes to Daphne High School in Alabama, which was the high school of Pat White. As such, former WVU coaches like Calvin Magee, who is now at Pitt, knew the coaching staff and Daphne. So when the Daphne staff was looking for a good landing place for Jackson, they called Magee and company and sent film.
That literally happened over the weekend. But how did Jackson get to that point?
From what I’ve heard, he had opportunities at UAB and a few other schools like that, but he wanted to hold out for something “bigger.” His coaches signed off on that plan, so he waited. Then, a week before Signing Day, the plan backfired when UAB and others told him that they no longer had room. So Jackson was stuck without an opportunity.
That’s when the Daphne coaching staff scrambled to find him a home. They knew the coaches at Pitt and trusted them, so they were comfortable recommending to Jackson and his parents that he would be taken care of in Pittsburgh.
Sometimes things work out in funny ways for different reasons. Maybe Jackson will be one of those case.
Also, here is some senior film of Jackson. His senior stats don’t jump off the page - 36 catches, 536 yards, 12 touchdowns - but the 3:1 catch-to-touchdown ratio is pretty impressive.
- And that makes for another nice segue. Pitt took quite a few recruits like Jackson, Steve Williams, among others. Recruits that would probably fall under the title of “reaches” or perhaps “sleepers,” if that’s kinder.
They were kids we didn’t know anything about or had never heard of (a few didn’t have profiles on Rivals). But I’ll say this: Todd Graham’s “reaches” all seem to have interesting potential. Jackson is 6’3” or 6’4”, depending on who you talk to and played at a very high level of football. And the other “reaches” in the class at least seem to have speed or some other defining characteristic that makes their upside and potential intriguing.
Not all of those guys will work out, but I have a feeling that a number of them will be good players. Time will tell on that one.
- I don’t begrudge recruits the opportunity to have a Signing Day press conference. I really don’t. I spend all year calling these kids and asking them how their visit was and what their top five is and when they’re going to decide, and there are two dozen other guys like me calling each of these kids just as many times asking all the same questions.
So if we’re going to make those demands on the kids, then they have the right to announce their decisions as they see fit. I don’t even have a problem with five hats on a table, although I appreciate kids who just pick up one hat, not the hat-switching trick.
But at a certain point, you can’t drag it out anymore. You just have to say the name of the school you picked and commit to it. I bring this up because both Branden Jackson and Desimon Green committed to “the University of Texas Tech.”
Come on.
You’ve held out this long to make your decision; why do you need that extra second or half-second you used when you said “the University of”? Do you really need that suspense?
Particularly Green, who was picking between Pitt and Texas Tech. He said it that way because he knew most people expected him to pick Pitt. It just rubbed me the wrong way. I’m okay with you having a press conference and opening your coat to show that you’re wearing your chosen school’s shirt; just say the name of your school and be done with it. No need for the added drama of mispronouncing your college’s name.
- And we’ll finish with Ejuan Price. I drove up to Woodland Hills on Wednesday morning to hear the announcement from Price and Lafayette Pitts. It was clear what Pitts was going to do when I walked in and saw a Pitt helmet on his table. But Price was more unclear.
His family’s table had an Ohio State helmet on it; that makes sense since he was committed to Ohio State and publicly stated he planned to sign with OSU. But I was positive I saw him walk in clutching a Pitt hat, albeit holding it low and attempting to keep it out of sight.
When he walked into that room, Price was still deciding between Ohio State and Pitt. And when Woodland Hills head coach George Novak called him to the podium to announce his college, he was still deciding. And even after he said “Ohio State,” he was still deciding.
After each of Woodland Hills’ recruits announced, Novak had them sign their Letters of Intent one at a time. While the other players were signing, a reporter asked Price - who had not signed yet - if he had a minute for an interview. Price said that he didn’t want to do an interview at that time; maybe later.
That raised an eyebrow, as did the sight of him flipping a coin multiple times while sitting at the table with his family. With all of this going on, I had to stay to see him sign the papers (which is why I was late getting to Clairton, thus holding up Green’s announcement for Texas Tech).
So I waited. Finally, Price stepped up to the table to sign his papers. I watched him put his signature on a Letter of Intent to attend Ohio State. I saw it with my own eyes. There was a part of me that felt like I should stay long enough to watch the paper go into the fax machine, but I had to get out to Clairton.
If I had stayed for the faxing, I might have missed Green’s announcement and the McKeesport announcements, because those papers did not hit the fax machine until after noon that day. That’s how close Price was to picking Pitt.
Top of the Pitt
Well, it’s certainly been an interesting two months, hasn’t it?
I’ve been working for this site since January of 2005, and I can safely, without hesitation, say that this has been the craziest two-month period in my career. Obviously much of that is tied up in Pitt’s exhausting game of dueling coaching searches, but that saga would merit an entire In the Pitt of its own, so let’s stick to the last three weeks and the whirlwind that was Todd Graham’s first recruiting class.
Seriously, by the time I sat down for a beer Wednesday night after the Signing Day press conference, I thought of that line from Goodfellas when Lorraine Bracco says she felt like she was drunk from meeting so many people in such a short amount of time at their wedding reception; that’s what covering Pitt’s recruiting was like in the last three weeks:
Seemingly every day, a new name popped up as having Pitt interest or a Pitt offer or taking a visit to Pitt.
Even on Signing Day, names were still popping up (hello, Justin Jackson). To say it was a never-ending grind would be a bit of an understatement.
But now it’s over. The three-week dash to Signing Day has concluded, so I thought we’d sit back, collect our thoughts, and try to figure out exactly what happened.
The mad dash
By now, you know what Pitt’s recruiting class looks like:
- 20 total recruits
- 6 defensive backs
- 4 running backs
- 3 wide receivers
- 3 linebackers
- 2 offensive linemen
- 1 defensive lineman
- 1 tight end
And those recruits came from all over the place, originating from Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, Maryland, New York, Washington, D.C., and, of course, Pennsylvania.
But here’s the thing to keep in mind (and I think most understand this):
Todd Graham and his staff had three weeks (two, really) to do two years’ worth of work.
That’s the key element. That’s what has to be considered in any evaluation of the class. And even though Graham and his staff had prior relationships with almost all of the recruits in the class, they still had to work to convince those kids that now Pitt was the best option after spending the last two years convincing them how good of an option Tulsa was or Michigan was.
That’s not an easy task. But with that caveat in mind, I think Graham and his staff did a pretty good job.
Running back was obviously a major concern, since Pitt enters spring camp with exactly one back on scholarship. So Graham signed four. We all know Malcolm Crockett; he had quite a few offers, but the former Pitt staff decided not to pursue him. If nothing else, Graham added much-needed bodies to the running back depth, and at least two, if not three, of those recruits will have to play this season.
The other major area of focus was defensive back, and Graham filled that position out, too. I really like the potential of Lafayette Pitts was a great pickup, even if it came with a fair amount of drama.
I think there’s interesting upside with a big receiver like Justin Jackson, and a good contrast with smaller speedsters Devin Cook looks like a good fit for Pitt’s new defense.
Overall, I think it’s a pretty solid class for what Graham and company had to work with in terms of time constraints and the difficult situation of stepping in after one coach was dismissed and the replacement was fired for domestic battery. That’s not quite an impossible scenario, but it’s pretty close.
I like that Graham attempted to shoot the moon a little, too. Granted, he didn’t land Chris Bryan, but he at least made the effort. And while moral victories ring pretty hollow, it says something about Graham and his staff that they were able to convince those three to take official visits and all on short notice.
The ones that got away
Of course, there’s also the matter of those 12 recruits who committed to Pitt last summer and fall but decided not to give Pitt another chance, and no discussion of this recruiting class would be complete without addressing that topic.
I’ve never seen anything like the exodus that took place in this recruiting class. 17 recruits were committed to Pitt in the fall (we’re not counting Andre Givens, who fell off the map), and just five of them ended up signing with the Panthers. Of the other 12:
- 3 signed with Rutgers
- 2 signed with Penn State
- 1 each signed with Iowa, West Virginia, Northwestern, Texas Tech, Virginia Tech, Toledo, and Cincinnati
Even other schools who went through coaching changes didn’t experience that kind of mass defection. Of course, Pitt’s situation was very unique: almost all of the commits were willing to listen to Mike Haywood and give him a chance, but when the second coaching change happened, they all started looking around. It was just too late in the process to expect recruits to stand by and wait for Pitt to hire another coach.
But there’s more to it than just the unique scenario, and I’ve come to realize that it has a lot to do with how the former staff recruited. I thought this quote from recruiting coordinator Tony Gibson was pretty interesting:
“The surprising thing was how many kids didn’t even listen.”
What I’ve found is that, more often than not, the former staff was recruiting on relationships rather than recruiting kids to Pitt. Relationships are always a big part of recruiting, and the former Pitt staff probably drew on that more than anything.
So when that staff left - and a major death knell to the former construction of the class was the departure of all assistant coaches - most of the recruits had little connection to Pitt. Sure, most of the recruits talked about the city and the school and the facilities and all of that when they originally committed, but the reality of the situation is that the staff used relationships to get kids to pick Pitt.
And it was an effective strategy. Pitt had a pretty strong recruiting class built in the fall, and it was almost entirely built on the strength of the relationships between the assistant coaches and the recruits. But when those assistants are no longer part of the football program, then the strongest connection for the recruits is gone.
This wasn’t a problem at places like Michigan, Florida, and Miami this offseason because those programs are draws in and of themselves. Pitt isn’t that kind of draw, for a variety of reasons. As such, the coaching staff had to recruit differently than a coach at Michigan or Florida or Miami would recruit, and the result was that there was little connection for the recruits to the University when the coaching staff left.
The other result of that situation is that, when Pitt assistants take other jobs, the relationships are still intact, making for open season on the recruits who were committed to Pitt. That’s why three of Jeff Hafley’s four commitments switched from Pitt to Rutgers and Hafley and Frank Cignetti nearly got Pitts to go to Rutgers, too.
The way the scenario was set up from the start and then unfolded created a perfect storm for Rutgers to take a bunch of Pitt’s commitments. Pitt still wanted Max Issaka and Marquise Wright and Gary Nova, but there was virtually no chance because of the way the recruitment was set up.
That’s probably the ultimate lesson behind the defections from this recruiting class: the foundation for those defections was laid a long time ago.
Connecting points
We’ll get back to the class in a minute, but here seems like as good a time as any to sidetrack for a minute into a popular theme/topic.
The recruiting defections and the loss of a class that was shaping up to be the best one Dave Wannstedt signed during his time at Pitt naturally led to some questions about the relationship between the fallout and the decision to fire Wannstedt.
I’ve heard it phrased as such: Steve Pederson failed to fully consider and understand the implications of his decision to make a coaching change, and his lack of foresight cost Pitt a great recruiting class.
This has to be addressed, and there’s a simple concept that must be understood. Most understand this (I think), but some do not. Either way, it has to be expressed.
Steve Pederson evaluated the progress of the program and came to the conclusion that Dave Wannstedt was not going to lead Pitt to a place where it would enjoy real, sustained success on a consistent basis. And while I’ll refrain from offering my own opinion on the subject, I think there’s a fair amount of evidence to support that conclusion. I’m not talking about 27 wins over three seasons; I’m talking about falling short of a winnable Big East championship three years in a row. I’m talking about failing to get a win against a beatable Connecticut team and then getting run out of the stadium by your rival the next week (which, incidentally, was the second blowout home loss of the season on a nationally-televised game; in the Miami and WVU games, Pitt was outscored 66-13).
I think Pederson looked at the situation and said, “I believe this program can operate at a higher level, and I do not believe Dave Wannstedt is capable of accomplishing that.” Agree or disagree, that’s the conclusion Pederson came to, and it’s within the parameters of his job to draw that conclusion.
If you are an Athletic Director and you draw that conclusion, then you have to follow through with the necessary moves. You cannot - cannot - be motivated by a recruiting class. You have to do what you believe is best for the program, and if a coaching change is what you believe to be best, then you have to make that happen. Losing a recruiting class is collateral damage and an acceptable loss in what you’re hoping to accomplish.
So while everyone would have liked to see Belton and Wright and all of those players at Pitt, you cannot justify staying with a head coach who you do not believe in simply to hold on to a handful of very good recruits.
McKeesport
2011 wasn’t a very strong year for WPIAL recruits. Pitt managed to get one of the top two recruits locally, but missed out on arguably the best prospect in the area and his teammate, who was one of the other strong local prospects.
Of course I’m talking about McKeesport’s Branden Jackson. Simmons signed with North Carolina and Jackson signed with Texas Tech.
There is a fair amount of disagreement about the upside with Jackson, so I’m going to focus on Simmons, who is a better prospect and emerged as one of the top defensive tackles in the country this year. But despite his considerable ability and status as a national recruit, Simmons seemed to view Pitt as an after-thought. So how does that happen?
Quite frankly, it was a blunder by the former coaching staff. I don’t want to hammer those guys now that they’re gone, but they made a considerable error with Simmons. Throughout spring camp, McKeesport head coach Jim Ward brought Jackson and Simmons to a number of practices in order to get them in front of the Pitt coaches. But supposedly the junior film of both players didn’t do much for the coaching staff, so they held off in offering either one.
By the time the June prospect and passing camps rolled around, Simmons and Jackson had picked up about 10 offers each, but neither had one from Pitt, who finally offered in late June. But a week after Pitt offered Simmons and Jackson, Marquise Wright committed to the Panthers. The Pitt staff only wanted to take one defensive tackle in the class, so they backed off both McKeesport players.
Fast-forward seven months, and Simmons is one of the best players at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl and has his choice of colleges from across the country.
Essentially, it was an error-filled process for Pitt.
From the start, there was no reason to hold off as long as they did before offering. Sure, maybe Simmons’ film didn’t wow the coaching staff, but in Simmons you have a player with size and athletic ability, and he’s from McKeesport, a strong Class AAAA program that continually turns out Division I prospects.
To me, that alone is reason enough to offer. But Pitt held off until at least 10 other schools had pulled the trigger.
Then, a week later, Pitt backs off again. And I think that was another gaffe. Perhaps they only wanted one defensive tackle, and perhaps they liked Marquise Wright a lot (and some will tell you Simmons is a better prospect than Wright). But here again, you’ve got a local player with a lot of potential, and even if you already have a defensive tackle on board, it’s still worth going after Simmons. Aren’t we talking about a head coach who has seen some of his best offensive linemen come from the defensive tackle position?
Simmons insisted on not playing offensive guard, and that’s fine; you can recruit both Simmons and Wright as defensive tackles and figure out what to do with them when they get to school.
Of course, ultimately it’s probably a moot point, since Simmons was set on playing in a 4-3 defense and likely wouldn’t have been attracted to Pitt’s new odd-man front, so maybe I should just save my breath.
Texas Tech
There’s a segue in going from a discussion of the McKeesport kids to some thoughts on Texas Tech, who came into western Pennsylvania and signed Jackson and Desimon Green. Like most, I had to do a double-take when those guys first started talking about Texas Tech last summer, since I had never heard of Texas Tech recruiting this area. A quick search of the Rivals database shows that Tech had not signed a player from Pennsylvania in any class dating back to 2002. In fact, Tech rarely left the state of Texas and almost never went north of Kansas.
But here were the Red Raiders, making a serious play for - and ultimately signing - kids from Clairton and McKeesport. What gives?
So I asked Green and Jackson that very question, and I got strikingly similar answers regarding Texas Tech and Robert Prunty, who was the lead recruiter for those two.
From Jackson:
”A lot of schools just want you as a football player, and that’s fine because at the end of the day it’s a business and you’re there to win games. But, there’s another side of it.
“They made sure that they got in touch with my family, and I’m a family-based man. Without my family, I wouldn’t be here, so I feel like, if you take me, you’re taking my family, too.
“Even when I was on my visit, besides the fact that we watched a little film, we never talked football. They’d call me and be like, ‘Jets or Steelers?’ or ‘Green Bay or the Steelers?’ It was never about what I oculd do for them as a player. It was always like, ‘How’s life? Did you go to church? Did you read your bible?’ Things like that, and that’s what stood out.”
From Green:
“With [Prunty], it’s not about football. I know I’m athletic; if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be in this situation. But he was more about taking care of me and my life after college, the degree and stuff like that. With everybody else, it was football, football, football.”
That was the angle, and it might sound familiar: Prunty came into western Pennsylvania and played the relationship card. He worked to establish the strongest relationship with the recruits and used the relationship to draw them 2,000 miles away from home to a city (Lubbock) that doesn’t sound appealing in an area of a state (west Texas) that has a reputation for being vast emptiness.
Pitt may have more going for it as a school and a city, but Prunty and the former assistants basically used the same formula to get recruits: Come play here and we’ll all do this together. We’re in this together.
The gist of it? It’s about the relationships far more than the school.
So Green and Jackson signed with Texas Tech. It will be interesting to monitor their progress in Lubbock.
Odds and ends
- One area largely missing from the recruiting class is the offensive line. Pitt signed two linemen, but it’s not an overwhelming group. Some have set this up as an oversight on the part of the coaching staff, but I don’t think it’s much of a surprise.
Truth is, the last coaching staff didn’t plan to load up on offensive linemen in this class because there just wasn’t much in Pitt’s recruiting area to choose from. However, the class of 2012 is strong with offensive linemen in the natural recruiting area, and Pitt already had some good relationships built with the current juniors. I think the new staff decided to take a similar approach; now we’ll just have to see if they can entice the 2012 standouts, of which there are quite a few.
- Jeff Hafley became a favorite recruiter Pitt fans due to his endless energy and ambition. Now fans should watch Mike Norvell, the receivers coach, co-offensive coordinator, and director of recruiting (which is apparently different from recruiting coordinator). I see the same endless energy and drive in Norvell that I saw in Hafley: they’re both young, they both seem to always be striving to work harder, and they both have done well in recruiting.
Wednesday was the first time I have seen Norvell since the day Todd Graham was hired; he’s been on the road ever since (although I believe he was around during the official visits). Graham instantly put Norvell to work on locking up recruits in the southeast, and he did a fairly good job given the time he had to work with.
- Todd Graham made sure to offer well-wishes to all the recruits who signed with schools other than Pitt on Wednesday. Recruiting coordinator Tony Gibson wasn’t quite so heartfelt, particularly with regards to the recruits who had previously been committed to Pitt.
“That was the first thing we did: we tried to call everybody that was committed here. But if they don’t want to be at Pitt, that’s shame on them. We’re going to get it done here and they’re going to regret their decision in another year or so. The kids that we got, we love them and we can’t wait to start coaching them. They’re going to be able to fit in with our players and they’re going to be here for one reason: because they love the University of Pittsburgh. And that’s what it’s all about.”
- So yeah, this article, the connection was that Jackson goes to Daphne High School in Alabama, which was the high school of Pat White. As such, former WVU coaches like Calvin Magee, who is now at Pitt, knew the coaching staff and Daphne. So when the Daphne staff was looking for a good landing place for Jackson, they called Magee and company and sent film.
That literally happened over the weekend. But how did Jackson get to that point?
From what I’ve heard, he had opportunities at UAB and a few other schools like that, but he wanted to hold out for something “bigger.” His coaches signed off on that plan, so he waited. Then, a week before Signing Day, the plan backfired when UAB and others told him that they no longer had room. So Jackson was stuck without an opportunity.
That’s when the Daphne coaching staff scrambled to find him a home. They knew the coaches at Pitt and trusted them, so they were comfortable recommending to Jackson and his parents that he would be taken care of in Pittsburgh.
Sometimes things work out in funny ways for different reasons. Maybe Jackson will be one of those case.
Also, here is some senior film of Jackson. His senior stats don’t jump off the page - 36 catches, 536 yards, 12 touchdowns - but the 3:1 catch-to-touchdown ratio is pretty impressive.
- And that makes for another nice segue. Pitt took quite a few recruits like Jackson, Steve Williams, among others. Recruits that would probably fall under the title of “reaches” or perhaps “sleepers,” if that’s kinder.
They were kids we didn’t know anything about or had never heard of (a few didn’t have profiles on Rivals). But I’ll say this: Todd Graham’s “reaches” all seem to have interesting potential. Jackson is 6’3” or 6’4”, depending on who you talk to and played at a very high level of football. And the other “reaches” in the class at least seem to have speed or some other defining characteristic that makes their upside and potential intriguing.
Not all of those guys will work out, but I have a feeling that a number of them will be good players. Time will tell on that one.
- I don’t begrudge recruits the opportunity to have a Signing Day press conference. I really don’t. I spend all year calling these kids and asking them how their visit was and what their top five is and when they’re going to decide, and there are two dozen other guys like me calling each of these kids just as many times asking all the same questions.
So if we’re going to make those demands on the kids, then they have the right to announce their decisions as they see fit. I don’t even have a problem with five hats on a table, although I appreciate kids who just pick up one hat, not the hat-switching trick.
But at a certain point, you can’t drag it out anymore. You just have to say the name of the school you picked and commit to it. I bring this up because both Branden Jackson and Desimon Green committed to “the University of Texas Tech.”
Come on.
You’ve held out this long to make your decision; why do you need that extra second or half-second you used when you said “the University of”? Do you really need that suspense?
Particularly Green, who was picking between Pitt and Texas Tech. He said it that way because he knew most people expected him to pick Pitt. It just rubbed me the wrong way. I’m okay with you having a press conference and opening your coat to show that you’re wearing your chosen school’s shirt; just say the name of your school and be done with it. No need for the added drama of mispronouncing your college’s name.
- And we’ll finish with Ejuan Price. I drove up to Woodland Hills on Wednesday morning to hear the announcement from Price and Lafayette Pitts. It was clear what Pitts was going to do when I walked in and saw a Pitt helmet on his table. But Price was more unclear.
His family’s table had an Ohio State helmet on it; that makes sense since he was committed to Ohio State and publicly stated he planned to sign with OSU. But I was positive I saw him walk in clutching a Pitt hat, albeit holding it low and attempting to keep it out of sight.
When he walked into that room, Price was still deciding between Ohio State and Pitt. And when Woodland Hills head coach George Novak called him to the podium to announce his college, he was still deciding. And even after he said “Ohio State,” he was still deciding.
After each of Woodland Hills’ recruits announced, Novak had them sign their Letters of Intent one at a time. While the other players were signing, a reporter asked Price - who had not signed yet - if he had a minute for an interview. Price said that he didn’t want to do an interview at that time; maybe later.
That raised an eyebrow, as did the sight of him flipping a coin multiple times while sitting at the table with his family. With all of this going on, I had to stay to see him sign the papers (which is why I was late getting to Clairton, thus holding up Green’s announcement for Texas Tech).
So I waited. Finally, Price stepped up to the table to sign his papers. I watched him put his signature on a Letter of Intent to attend Ohio State. I saw it with my own eyes. There was a part of me that felt like I should stay long enough to watch the paper go into the fax machine, but I had to get out to Clairton.
If I had stayed for the faxing, I might have missed Green’s announcement and the McKeesport announcements, because those papers did not hit the fax machine until after noon that day. That’s how close Price was to picking Pitt.
