We've seen a rash of opt-out announcements this morning, with Israel Abanikanda, Deslin Alexandre, SirVocea Dennis and Gabe Houy tweet that they won't be playing in the Sun Bowl, joining Brandon Hill, John Morgan and Kedon Slovis, who already previously announced their departures.
I thought there would be a bunch of announcements this morning, given that we're scheduled to talk to Pat Narduzzi after Pitt's practice today; I assumed Narduzzi wouldn't want to be answering a barrage of "Will he play?" questions, so it made sense to see these announcements all come pretty much at once.
But it raises a few questions:
What about Calijah Kancey? What about Habakkuk Baldonado? What about Jared Wayne? If they're going to leave as well, shouldn't they have posted something by now?
I'll start by saying that I've actually been hearing some rumors that Calijah Kancey is coming back. They're just rumors and I'm not saying it will happen, but there's some talk about it that I started hearing late last week. Combining that plus Kancey's non-announcement today sure does make it seem like a real possibility. I also wonder how quickly he could recover from shoulder injury to turn around and participate in the combine or Pro Day; maybe that's a factor at play.
I haven't heard anything on Baldonado, although it's interesting that when Morgan decided to transfer, I heard pretty quickly that the staff was ready to move on to younger defensive ends - and Baldonado is not a young defensive end.
As for Wayne, I don't know which way he's leaning but I have heard that he's been practicing, so we'll see what becomes of that.
I thought there would be a bunch of announcements this morning, given that we're scheduled to talk to Pat Narduzzi after Pitt's practice today; I assumed Narduzzi wouldn't want to be answering a barrage of "Will he play?" questions, so it made sense to see these announcements all come pretty much at once.
But it raises a few questions:
What about Calijah Kancey? What about Habakkuk Baldonado? What about Jared Wayne? If they're going to leave as well, shouldn't they have posted something by now?
I'll start by saying that I've actually been hearing some rumors that Calijah Kancey is coming back. They're just rumors and I'm not saying it will happen, but there's some talk about it that I started hearing late last week. Combining that plus Kancey's non-announcement today sure does make it seem like a real possibility. I also wonder how quickly he could recover from shoulder injury to turn around and participate in the combine or Pro Day; maybe that's a factor at play.
I haven't heard anything on Baldonado, although it's interesting that when Morgan decided to transfer, I heard pretty quickly that the staff was ready to move on to younger defensive ends - and Baldonado is not a young defensive end.
As for Wayne, I don't know which way he's leaning but I have heard that he's been practicing, so we'll see what becomes of that.
