Interesting post. Spent some time thinking about this before responding.
The following are my selections for the POD's (player of the decade) for each of the last 5.
70's (1971-1980)
#1 Tony Dorsett 73-76
#2 Hugh Green 77-80
#3 Ricky Jackson 77-80
#4 Matt Cavanaugh 73-77
#5 Mark May 77-80
#6 Gordon Jones
#7 Elliot Walker
Hard to go against TD but Hugh Green was a very solid 2nd for the 70's POD. Pretty good list of players from which to choose. Others could have been Randy Holloway, Gary Burley, Carlton Williamson, Jim Corbett and Glen Hyde.
80's (1981-1990)
#1 Dan Marino (81-82)
#2 Bill Fralic (81-84)
#3 Craig Heyward (84-87)
#4 Mark Stepnoski (85-88)
#5 Bryan Thomas (81-82)
Say what you will about his senior year but Marino is the best QB at PITT over the last 50 years and probably the 50 prior to that as well. It is hard to not at least nominate him #1. Fralic is probably the co- #1 POD for the 80's.
Others worthy of votes would be Jimbo Covert, Dwight Collins, Julius Dawkins, Bill Wallace, Curvin Richards, Randy Dixon, Chris Doleman, Mark Spindler and Sal Sunseri.
90's (1991-2000)
#1 Antonio Bryant (99-00)
#2 Alex Van Pelt (91-92)
#2 Curtis Martin (91-94)
#3 Billy West (93-97)
#3 Dietrich Jells (91-95)
#4 Reuben Brown (90-94)
#5 Dave Moore (90-91)
Despite a lot of bad seasons, there are still some good players to select for POD of the 1990's. Pete Gonzalez had a great 1997 season. Gerald Simpson was a pretty fair linebacker for 4 straight losing teams. Tom Tumulty, Terry Murphy, John Jenkins and Latif Grim.
2000's
(2001-2010)
#1 Larry Fitzgerald (02-03)
#2 Shady McCoy (07-08)
#3 Darrel Revis (04-06)
#4 Rod Rutherford (01-03)
#5 Tyler Palko (02-06)
#6 Dion Lewis (09-10)
Pretty good list overall. Much more talent to choose from this decade. Interesting that Fitz, McCoy, Revis and Lewis spent three years or less with the program. Others that could be nominated are Gerald Hayes, Larod Stephens Howling, Derek Kinder, Lou Polite, HB Blades and Jabal Sheard.
2010's (teens) (2011 - 2018)
#1 Aaron Donald (10-13)
#2 James Conner (13-16)
#3 Tyler Boyd (13-15)
The list kind of starts and end with Donald. Unless somebody blows up on the team over the next 2 seasons, that is not likely to change.
Overall, plenty of talented players to evaluate over the past 50 seasons. Some decades featured more talent than others. Would be interesting to see similar lists for PSU and WVU. Could be an interesting basis of comparison between the three programs over the past half century.
Pitt certainly has had its fair share of great players through the years. The #1 nominees for most of the decades are about as good as it gets. The depth, however, and lack thereof in some decades makes me wonder if PITT was really any more talented than most other programs.
