Jackson Brown OL cb’d To Pitt
- Thread starter oldpanther
- Start date
Legacy recruit. This was his dad...
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/azcentral/name/antony-brown-obituary?pid=143720091
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/azcentral/name/antony-brown-obituary?pid=143720091
Thanks for sharing this! I had no idea this is Tony Brown's son.
Just hope he's not "Running on empty" 
Sorry . I had to .
Sorry . I had to .
This. We’re long past time to start landing some all around capable OL. Get a good OL it might be amazing how much better everyone else gets all the sudden.
His dad started on an OL for Pitt that was VERY GOOD. That’s a strong endorsement as to the bloodline.
Now, there are no guarantees how any HS recruit will turn out. But if Pitt has prioritized Jackson and prefers him to come to Pitt, I hope the Panthers get him.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
I like the enthusiasm but this kid isn't even the best OL-man that is leaning towards Pitt. If you think Brown's offer sheet is nice, go check out Desaun Williams.
Thank you for that. I was wondering what the connection is because that is a different list of competing schools than Pitt normally goes up against.
With O linemen it’s a numbers game. Every program needs a lot of them to put a good starting 5 and at least 3-4 plug-in backups on the field. It’s hard enough to develop 5 capable starters let alone any depth. OLs almost all need some development to transition from HS to capable college players. Many of them in every program don’t pan out, so it’s important to bring in as many in every class as possible.
So keep ‘em coming.
Going by cryptic tweet from Karlo of a crystal ball and a hammer after a Duzz tweet.
Really? I fail to see the difference this year vs any other year under Narduzzi when looking at ratings and offer sheets. Two to Three Rivals 5.5-5.7 3-star recruits with half a dozen P5 offers each.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
It's really not. If you look at the composite, it tells the same story. Someone mentioned it already. There aren't many "elite" linemen to go around and you need 20 or more on your roster.
Narduzzi early recruiting was a bump up from where Chryst left things. He has improved the recruiting ability on staff as he turned over assistants. He has 5 very good to good recruiters on staff right now. The recent draft and program depth speak to that IMO. They need a couple killer recruiter on the offensive side like Beatty and now Marion.
Last edited:
The post that I was responding to was specifically about the OL recruits, which were decidedly not given a bump when Chryst left.
The OL recruiting under Narduzzi has generally been woeful and that has shown on Saturdays. Not enough players and not good enough players on the OL depth chart. There has also been a fair amount of attrition from OL recruiting misses that were never likely to succeed at the P5 level . It seems to me based on last year’s class and the commits and targets this year the staff is at least starting to emphasize the OL recruiting more, which is crucial. I think a good target should be to have 4-5 OLs in every class, with nearly all of them having good P5 level offer sheets or lower rated undersized guys who can move and have the length and frame to add good weight to.
Chryst's oline recruiting was pretty much a complete bust after DJ's class. Jones-Smith's injury didn't help Pitt but he's still on an NFL roster.
The underclassmen that Narduzzi inherited were not good. That said, it's on Narduzzi for not recognizing the lack of depth on the oline after he arrived. It shouldn't have taken them 3 years to build any depth.
Give Narduzzi credit for moving O'Neil to tackle who is easily the best over the last 10 years.
That's pretty spot on but the problem started with Chryst's 2 years of oline busts.
Agreed - we should have 4-5 OL recruits in every class. Big Frame, Good Footwork, and Competitive are the 3 keys when looking at potential. I like OT that play basketball and interior lineman that wrestle in HS. Good indicators of potential.
This is fair. I would like to see them average 4 per class, understanding some years might be 3 and others 5. If you look at 2020, quality was ok but they only signed 2. 2019 only signed 2 and one is gone already (although Collier was switched from TE to OL). Chryst left a good upper class line, but nothing behind it.
Contrast this to what they've been doing on the DL. It was a disaster when Duzz took over. First 4 full classes (16, 17, 18, 19) they took 21 DL commits. They've taken 6 in the last two classes.
Both lines lacked quality depth when he took over. One was rebuilt and the other wasn't.
I understand it’s difficult to recruit to the O line especially for a middling P5. You need a lot of players and so does everyone else. One or two excellent starting linemen with 3 schlubs doesn’t get you very far. You need 5 good, capable guys. But you just have to make recruiting OL a top priority and go after it.
No matter what the trends are, or the style of play, it’s just a fact that you start with the trenches on both sides and build out from there. If your front isn’t getting a push on the other team’s front you’re in for a long day.
I loved Wanny's approach to Online recruiting. Unless if the guy was an elite OLine recruit (Jacobson and Nix), he recruited DLinemen and those who didn't survive the cut on that side got switched to Online. That approach gave us Malecki/Pinkson/Spencer and I think one or 2 more.
i believe alot of Wanny's approaches came from The U and Jimmy Johnson when he coached down there. I know Miami did this with recruiting OL, basically recruiting DL like you said and if they fail, move them over and in the 30-30 special, they talked about getting athletes and moving them "down" a position to utilize speed. Something Wanny did when he came to pitt, with mixed results (Putting that kindly)..
That moving everyone on defense down a position (Safeties to LBs, LBs to Des, DEs) works well when you were recruiting elite athletes like The U did in the 80's, not so much when they arent elite athletes like Pitt at the time..
With this in mind, I would not be surprised to see Fitzsimmons as an OG.
Yes exactly. It worked well with linemen as I gave examples to how well that worked.. It did not work well with Tommie Campbell nor Dorin (both who I would call elite athletes), because they didn't have the mentality to play the position asked of them. Without the proper mentality, everything else is is usless.
Same. Someone mentioned Malecki above. He was nasty on the DL at Franklin and I can see some of that in FitzSimmons. Getting Ford and Donald last year gives them some flexibility to try him on offense. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Hayes ended up bulking up enough to play inside some.
I think D. Ford would be a good OG.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
There aren't a ton of elite OL-men available. BC had one of the best O-lines in the country last year. Not a lot of highly rated guys out of HS. Wisky is similar but they get a couple good players now and then. Whisky's class this year has one elite kid who is staying home and one guy that would be underwhelming to this board.
Anyone actually watch this kids film? A lot to like. HCPN needs to close this and we gotta throw numbers at the OL
It’s funny. In the same class as Malecki there were two much-heralded DL in PA — one from near Harrisburg and one from the northern Philly suburbs. Wanna recruited both of them as OL. He told them that too. He thought Malecki was the only one who would stick on the DL.
Neither of them wanted to play on the OL. Both went to PSU. One was moved to the OL the first week of Fall practice. He quit the team and dropped out of school after a year. The other one stayed on the DL and became an AA and NFL player at DT. And, Malecki ended up at OG. So DW’s analysis, while usually good, wasn’t so good that year.
When Larry Coyer was here, he said if he could he would never recruit a HS OL unless he was the reincarnation of Bill Fralic. He would recruit all DL and then convert half of them. But, there just weren’t enough good DL to do that.
Neither of them wanted to play on the OL. Both went to PSU. One was moved to the OL the first week of Fall practice. He quit the team and dropped out of school after a year. The other one stayed on the DL and became an AA and NFL player at DT. And, Malecki ended up at OG. So DW’s analysis, while usually good, wasn’t so good that year.
When Larry Coyer was here, he said if he could he would never recruit a HS OL unless he was the reincarnation of Bill Fralic. He would recruit all DL and then convert half of them. But, there just weren’t enough good DL to do that.
Similar threads
