Pitt closed out spring camp on Thursday morning with an indoor practice. Here’s a look at some notable items from the morning.
- I’ll say off the bat: it wasn’t exactly filled with highlights. Most of the open viewing window for the media was filled with procedural doings.
You know all the things Pitt does during pregame at Acrisure Stadium? They practiced those on Thursday morning. What does pregame practice look like?
They started by working on “the jungle” - that pregame ritual where the players all line up in the end zone and get hyped up before running onto the field for their pregame warmups.
This has been tradition since Pat Narduzzi arrived, and I guess they have to work through the details of it at some point.
That point was Thursday morning.
- After practicing getting hyped up, the players dispersed to the spots on the field where their various positions would go through warmup drills.
Again, not very exciting stuff, but I guess you have to practice those things at some point since they’ll be doing them on Saturday ahead of the Blue-Gold Game.
I imagine the coaches went light with the players for the rest of Thursday’s practice after the media left, but there were a couple things I noticed before that happened.
- I’ve talked about Bam Brima getting work at defensive tackle, and on Thursday morning, that’s where he was lined up for the Blue Team defense. So the starting defensive line for that group was Brima and Isaiah Neal at tackle and Nate Matlack and Jimmy Scott at end. That’s not a bad defensive line, particularly for a spring game, but they’re still facing a tougher challenge than the Gold defensive line, since the Gold offensive line is quite a bit better than the Blue.
- The Blue defensive line is an interesting group, too, with Dayon Hayes and Sincere Edwards at end and Elliot Donald and Sean FitzSimmons at tackle.
Edwards is one of the main guys to watch on Saturday, I think; he’s been getting some positive reviews as a true freshman, and I could see him working his way into the rotation. As it is, he was drafted ahead of scholarship upperclassmen Maverick Gracio, David Ojiegbe and Antonio Camon, which is significant.
Donald is worth watching, too, because this feels like a make-or-break season for him. The former four-star prospect hasn’t done much of anything in his career thus far, but the opportunity is there. There’s competition for that opportunity, though, with Brima, FitzSimmons, Neal, Indiana transfer Nick James and converted defensive end Nahki Johnson all pushing for playing time.
- I think both the Gold and Blue teams ended up with strong safety pairings - Gold has Donovan McMillon and Jesse Anderson; Blue has P.J. O’Brien and Javon McIntyre. It’s obviously disappointing to not see Cruce Brookins on Saturday, since he was the talk of spring camp, but McMillon/Anderson and O’Brien/McIntyre make for a couple of good pairings.
Similarly, both teams have some nice linebacker matches - Brandon George and Rasheem Biles for Blue, Kyle Louis and Braylan Lovelace for Gold.
I think the theme here is clear: safety and linebacker look like the strongest and possibly deepest positions on the defense and possibly the team, so it’s no surprise that there’s enough depth to go around for two teams. And that’s with a decent number of injured players at both positions - Brookins at safety; Solomon DeShields, Keye Thompson and Jordan Bass at linebacker - who won’t be participating on Saturday.
- That just about does it for today’s report. We’ll have videos, photos and more from the final week of camp heading into Saturday’s scrimmage.
- I’ll say off the bat: it wasn’t exactly filled with highlights. Most of the open viewing window for the media was filled with procedural doings.
You know all the things Pitt does during pregame at Acrisure Stadium? They practiced those on Thursday morning. What does pregame practice look like?
They started by working on “the jungle” - that pregame ritual where the players all line up in the end zone and get hyped up before running onto the field for their pregame warmups.
This has been tradition since Pat Narduzzi arrived, and I guess they have to work through the details of it at some point.
That point was Thursday morning.
- After practicing getting hyped up, the players dispersed to the spots on the field where their various positions would go through warmup drills.
Again, not very exciting stuff, but I guess you have to practice those things at some point since they’ll be doing them on Saturday ahead of the Blue-Gold Game.
I imagine the coaches went light with the players for the rest of Thursday’s practice after the media left, but there were a couple things I noticed before that happened.
- I’ve talked about Bam Brima getting work at defensive tackle, and on Thursday morning, that’s where he was lined up for the Blue Team defense. So the starting defensive line for that group was Brima and Isaiah Neal at tackle and Nate Matlack and Jimmy Scott at end. That’s not a bad defensive line, particularly for a spring game, but they’re still facing a tougher challenge than the Gold defensive line, since the Gold offensive line is quite a bit better than the Blue.
- The Blue defensive line is an interesting group, too, with Dayon Hayes and Sincere Edwards at end and Elliot Donald and Sean FitzSimmons at tackle.
Edwards is one of the main guys to watch on Saturday, I think; he’s been getting some positive reviews as a true freshman, and I could see him working his way into the rotation. As it is, he was drafted ahead of scholarship upperclassmen Maverick Gracio, David Ojiegbe and Antonio Camon, which is significant.
Donald is worth watching, too, because this feels like a make-or-break season for him. The former four-star prospect hasn’t done much of anything in his career thus far, but the opportunity is there. There’s competition for that opportunity, though, with Brima, FitzSimmons, Neal, Indiana transfer Nick James and converted defensive end Nahki Johnson all pushing for playing time.
- I think both the Gold and Blue teams ended up with strong safety pairings - Gold has Donovan McMillon and Jesse Anderson; Blue has P.J. O’Brien and Javon McIntyre. It’s obviously disappointing to not see Cruce Brookins on Saturday, since he was the talk of spring camp, but McMillon/Anderson and O’Brien/McIntyre make for a couple of good pairings.
Similarly, both teams have some nice linebacker matches - Brandon George and Rasheem Biles for Blue, Kyle Louis and Braylan Lovelace for Gold.
I think the theme here is clear: safety and linebacker look like the strongest and possibly deepest positions on the defense and possibly the team, so it’s no surprise that there’s enough depth to go around for two teams. And that’s with a decent number of injured players at both positions - Brookins at safety; Solomon DeShields, Keye Thompson and Jordan Bass at linebacker - who won’t be participating on Saturday.
- That just about does it for today’s report. We’ll have videos, photos and more from the final week of camp heading into Saturday’s scrimmage.
