Well, that was quite a week, wasn’t it?
Pitt had just one week to recruit on the road in December, and the staff was pretty active from start to finish. Along the way, there was a decommitment, a chance to re-land several former commits, a coaching change, transfer targets and a whole lot more.
Let’s run down the week to recap all the biggest storylines.
On the road
When the season ends, college coaches start the contact period. During this stage of the recruiting calendar, coaches can go on the road, visit high schools and have in-person contact with recruits off-campus.
This is unique, because during most times of the year - basically all year except for these weeks in December and January - in-person contact is only permissible on campus, if it’s permissible at all (during the dead period, no in-person contact is permissible).
So this is a big stretch on the recruiting calendar. Coaches finish their seasons and then visit recruits in their high schools, their homes, their open gyms - anywhere, really. It’s an opportunity to use in-person meetings to lock up the current commitments and make a final push for the remaining targets.
Coaches are permitted to visit each recruit six times total between the end of the season and Signing Day in February, but they can’t visit a recruit more than once in a week, so they rarely actually use all six visits.
The head coach, on the other hand, can only visit each prospect once. So you can see that a strategic approach is needed to make sure the right recruits get the right visits and the head coach gets to see the top targets at the right time.
For most schools, the on-the-road recruiting started when the regular season ended, and those coaching staffs had two full weeks to get out and see recruits. For schools like Pitt and Wake Forest and Michigan and Iowa and Oregon and Utah and any other conference-championship participants, last week was spent on preparation for their respective title games, meaning they only had one week to go on the road.
That’s a bit of a disadvantage, but it’s not outweighed by the impact of playing for the conference championship, and I think most coaches would take that trade-off.
Working on a recommit
Let’s start with Pitt’s commitment list. At the beginning of the week, the Panthers had 11 recruits committed for the class of 2022, but that number dropped to 10 on Sunday when Tampa running back Jordaan Bailey decommitted.
That move came as a surprise, simply because Bailey had been in the class since June and hadn’t really given any indication that he was wavering. There were apparently academic concerns that may have led Pitt to start slowing down its push for Bailey, and that appeared to materialize at the decommitment.
Bailey’s story didn’t end there, though. On Tuesday, Pat Narduzzi and safeties coach Cory Sanders, who recruits Tampa for Pitt, had an in-home visit with Bailey, and it sounds like that meeting was productive.
I think there are still academic concerns, but from what I’ve heard, all parties came out of that visit with a plan to get Bailey on track in that area - and on track to sign with Pitt next Wednesday.
Bailey hasn’t made any public announcement about his intentions for Signing Day and things can change in the next three or four days, but it sounds like there’s a good chance he’ll be back in the Panthers’ class.
And another recommit target
Bailey wasn’t the first recruit to decommit from Pitt in the last few weeks. He wasn’t even the first recruit from Florida to decommit (fun fact: Pitt has lost six commitments in the class of 2022; I would say four of those were prospects the staff genuinely wanted to hold onto, and all four of them are from Florida).
Before Bailey decommitted, the month started with Camden Brown backing off his verbal pledge. Brown, a newly-minted four-star receiver prospect from St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, decommitted on Dec. 1, but the move was coming for awhile. He had picked up a number of offers throughout the fall, including Florida State, West Virginia, South Carolina and Arizona, and after he decommitted, Georgia joined the list as well.
In addition to the offers, Brown showed interest in exploring his options when he took an official visit to FSU during the season. That raised some eyebrows, but from everything I heard at the time, the Seminoles didn’t make a strong impression on him, and he actually came out of the visit seeming to be even more solid with Pitt than he was going in.
The acceleration of his recruitment continued, though, and he decided to decommit at the beginning of the month. He named a top five of Pitt, Georgia, Auburn, South Carolina and Florida State; he took an official visit to Auburn last weekend and will visit Georgia this weekend, and obviously those two SEC schools are a big threat.
Pitt hasn’t given up, though. On Wednesday night, Brown hosted Narduzzi, defensive line coach Charlie Partridge and receivers coach Brennan Marion for a visit, and the Panthers gave it their best shot.
Georgia certainly looms large here, but the Bulldogs’ approach will be interesting to monitor. They have three receivers committed already but are clearly in the market for at least one more, and they’ve got multiple targets they are pursuing. Brown might not be at the very top of that list, which could work in Pitt’s favor - or Auburn’s, for that matter.
As I wrote yesterday, the key will be the relationships. Partridge has his reputation as a great recruiter for a reason, and that reason is the relationships he builds with the recruits. He has done that with Brown, and now the relationship will be put to the test as the standout receiver goes through the final stages of the recruiting process.
We’ll know his decision soon enough: Brown plans to sign on Wednesday. I can’t sit here and say I believe Pitt will win this one, but if the Panthers can land Brown, I believe he’s talented enough to get on the field and make an impact as a freshman in 2022.
The still-committed
While the Pitt staff worked on Bailey and Brown and their other targets this week, the coaches also spent plenty of time visiting with the 10 commitments they still have in the fold.
On Sunday, tight ends coach Tim Salem and linebackers coach Ryan Manalac visited linebacker commit Kyle Louis and watched Louis’ East Orange team win the state championship in a wild overtime game.
On Monday, offensive line coach Dave Borbely stopped by Central Valley to see defensive tackle commit Sean FitzSimmons, while Narduzzi and Salem were in Buffalo for visits with receiver commit Addison Copeland and Jimmy Scott. That night, Narduzzi, Borbely and cornerbacks coach Archie Collins went to Ohio for an in-home visit with four-star offensive line commit Ryan Baer.
On Tuesday, Borbely and Marion went to Virginia for an in-home visit with offensive line commit Isaiah Montgomery. And on Thursday, Narduzzi and Collins were in Georgia to visit defensive back commit Ryland Gandy.
Receiver commit Che Nwabuko was planning to host Marion for a visit on Thursday, but Marion changed those plans so he could be in Pittsburgh with Jordan Addison for the Biletnikoff Award ceremony.
Continued
Pitt had just one week to recruit on the road in December, and the staff was pretty active from start to finish. Along the way, there was a decommitment, a chance to re-land several former commits, a coaching change, transfer targets and a whole lot more.
Let’s run down the week to recap all the biggest storylines.
On the road
When the season ends, college coaches start the contact period. During this stage of the recruiting calendar, coaches can go on the road, visit high schools and have in-person contact with recruits off-campus.
This is unique, because during most times of the year - basically all year except for these weeks in December and January - in-person contact is only permissible on campus, if it’s permissible at all (during the dead period, no in-person contact is permissible).
So this is a big stretch on the recruiting calendar. Coaches finish their seasons and then visit recruits in their high schools, their homes, their open gyms - anywhere, really. It’s an opportunity to use in-person meetings to lock up the current commitments and make a final push for the remaining targets.
Coaches are permitted to visit each recruit six times total between the end of the season and Signing Day in February, but they can’t visit a recruit more than once in a week, so they rarely actually use all six visits.
The head coach, on the other hand, can only visit each prospect once. So you can see that a strategic approach is needed to make sure the right recruits get the right visits and the head coach gets to see the top targets at the right time.
For most schools, the on-the-road recruiting started when the regular season ended, and those coaching staffs had two full weeks to get out and see recruits. For schools like Pitt and Wake Forest and Michigan and Iowa and Oregon and Utah and any other conference-championship participants, last week was spent on preparation for their respective title games, meaning they only had one week to go on the road.
That’s a bit of a disadvantage, but it’s not outweighed by the impact of playing for the conference championship, and I think most coaches would take that trade-off.
Working on a recommit
Let’s start with Pitt’s commitment list. At the beginning of the week, the Panthers had 11 recruits committed for the class of 2022, but that number dropped to 10 on Sunday when Tampa running back Jordaan Bailey decommitted.
That move came as a surprise, simply because Bailey had been in the class since June and hadn’t really given any indication that he was wavering. There were apparently academic concerns that may have led Pitt to start slowing down its push for Bailey, and that appeared to materialize at the decommitment.
Bailey’s story didn’t end there, though. On Tuesday, Pat Narduzzi and safeties coach Cory Sanders, who recruits Tampa for Pitt, had an in-home visit with Bailey, and it sounds like that meeting was productive.
I think there are still academic concerns, but from what I’ve heard, all parties came out of that visit with a plan to get Bailey on track in that area - and on track to sign with Pitt next Wednesday.
Bailey hasn’t made any public announcement about his intentions for Signing Day and things can change in the next three or four days, but it sounds like there’s a good chance he’ll be back in the Panthers’ class.
And another recommit target
Bailey wasn’t the first recruit to decommit from Pitt in the last few weeks. He wasn’t even the first recruit from Florida to decommit (fun fact: Pitt has lost six commitments in the class of 2022; I would say four of those were prospects the staff genuinely wanted to hold onto, and all four of them are from Florida).
Before Bailey decommitted, the month started with Camden Brown backing off his verbal pledge. Brown, a newly-minted four-star receiver prospect from St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, decommitted on Dec. 1, but the move was coming for awhile. He had picked up a number of offers throughout the fall, including Florida State, West Virginia, South Carolina and Arizona, and after he decommitted, Georgia joined the list as well.
In addition to the offers, Brown showed interest in exploring his options when he took an official visit to FSU during the season. That raised some eyebrows, but from everything I heard at the time, the Seminoles didn’t make a strong impression on him, and he actually came out of the visit seeming to be even more solid with Pitt than he was going in.
The acceleration of his recruitment continued, though, and he decided to decommit at the beginning of the month. He named a top five of Pitt, Georgia, Auburn, South Carolina and Florida State; he took an official visit to Auburn last weekend and will visit Georgia this weekend, and obviously those two SEC schools are a big threat.
Pitt hasn’t given up, though. On Wednesday night, Brown hosted Narduzzi, defensive line coach Charlie Partridge and receivers coach Brennan Marion for a visit, and the Panthers gave it their best shot.
Georgia certainly looms large here, but the Bulldogs’ approach will be interesting to monitor. They have three receivers committed already but are clearly in the market for at least one more, and they’ve got multiple targets they are pursuing. Brown might not be at the very top of that list, which could work in Pitt’s favor - or Auburn’s, for that matter.
As I wrote yesterday, the key will be the relationships. Partridge has his reputation as a great recruiter for a reason, and that reason is the relationships he builds with the recruits. He has done that with Brown, and now the relationship will be put to the test as the standout receiver goes through the final stages of the recruiting process.
We’ll know his decision soon enough: Brown plans to sign on Wednesday. I can’t sit here and say I believe Pitt will win this one, but if the Panthers can land Brown, I believe he’s talented enough to get on the field and make an impact as a freshman in 2022.
The still-committed
While the Pitt staff worked on Bailey and Brown and their other targets this week, the coaches also spent plenty of time visiting with the 10 commitments they still have in the fold.
On Sunday, tight ends coach Tim Salem and linebackers coach Ryan Manalac visited linebacker commit Kyle Louis and watched Louis’ East Orange team win the state championship in a wild overtime game.
On Monday, offensive line coach Dave Borbely stopped by Central Valley to see defensive tackle commit Sean FitzSimmons, while Narduzzi and Salem were in Buffalo for visits with receiver commit Addison Copeland and Jimmy Scott. That night, Narduzzi, Borbely and cornerbacks coach Archie Collins went to Ohio for an in-home visit with four-star offensive line commit Ryan Baer.
On Tuesday, Borbely and Marion went to Virginia for an in-home visit with offensive line commit Isaiah Montgomery. And on Thursday, Narduzzi and Collins were in Georgia to visit defensive back commit Ryland Gandy.
Receiver commit Che Nwabuko was planning to host Marion for a visit on Thursday, but Marion changed those plans so he could be in Pittsburgh with Jordan Addison for the Biletnikoff Award ceremony.
Continued
