From the desk of Jim Snyder
Blue-Gold game
Pitt will play their annual Blue-Gold game at Heinz Field on Saturday at 1:00 pm. The coaching staff is trying to work a lot of young players into the two-deep chart. If you go on Saturday please stop back and give us your thoughts.
Pitt will “televise” the spring game free on their All Access service. If you can’t go you might want to watch via the internet.
For those of you that are tied up on Saturday the Pantherlair will be there. Chris and Tony will give you a full report.
Bracket Battle winners
As we reported last week the top four finishers in the Bracket Battle were:
Pittinmd
59andcounting
DORT
Braves2121
The Customer Service Department at Rivals.com has set you up. We tried to notify each of you off-line but a couple of our notifications bounced back which suggests we have an obsolete e-mail address on file for a couple of you.
Once again congratulations to each of our winners.
Jam Fest at Pitt
Next weekend the University of Pittsburgh will host the JAM Fest AAU tournament. Games will be played at a number of basketball courts in the Pittsburgh area including the “Pete” and the Field House. There are several players of interest to Pitt fans that are scheduled to attend.
1) Nasir Robinson – Pitt commit from Chester, PA will play for Team Final.
2) Travon Woodall- Pitt commit-St Anthony’s point guard will play for Playaz.
3) Eloy Vargas-6’ 10” junior forward. He played for American Heritage HS in Hollywood, Florida. Originally from the Dominican Republic. He is scheduled to play with Team Breakdown. We hope you caught the article on Vargas on the Ticker this week.
4) Terrance Boyd-6’ 5” sophomore forward. Played for Oak Hill Academy this past school year. He is scheduled to play for the DC Assault.
5) Roscoe Davis-6’ 9” sophomore forward-Played for Henry Wise HS in Maryland this past year. Expected to play for the DC Assault.
6) Jonathan Baldwin-Junior from Aliquippa-Expected to play for the Pittsburgh Storm.
7) Terrelle Pryor-Junior from Jeannette-Expected to play for the Pittsburgh Storm.
There were well over 70 teams signed up to play in the JAM Fest the last we looked so there certainly will be other players of interest. There are nine teams from the state of Pennsylvania. Rivals.com is scheduled to cover this event this year. There is another tournament in Houston the same weekend so I expect that Jerry Meyer will be at one and Justin Young at the other. College basketball coaches are also allowed to attend because we are in an Evaluation Period. In addition to the Pitt coaches we expect Memphis coach John Calipari and others to attend.
A little more on hoops
The media loves Bob Huggins. He makes writing easy. When the Cincinnati Bearcats hit a little slump a few years back he made his team dress in the girls’ locker room for a week or so telling them they were not worthy to dress in the men’s locker room. They were a disgrace to those that had worn the Bearcats uniform. Within a short period the Bearcats start winning again and his team was allowed back in the men’s locker room. The media loves this type of story.
The Big East has some high profile basketball coaches with Bob Huggins, Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun, Jay Wright, Jamie Dixon, Tom Crean, Rick Pitino and John Thompson. They all have won and they all make good copy.
ESPN Magazine has a large article this week on Maggie Dixon. Good stuff!
The newspapers have reported DeJuan Blair received a qualifying score on his SAT exams. No player is eligible until he has graduated from high school. We recall reading along the way that he had a course or two that he had to make up. We are not sure where he stands but we do not recall a player that had qualifying board scores that did not eventually qualify. Blair has the hard part behind him. We feel confident that the classroom work will be made up at some point.
Recruiting roundup
This week Rival.com updated their Pre-evaluation Top 100. They will do it again in late May. You can be pretty sure that anyone of the current list will be four-star or five-star prospect when they get around to passing out the stars.
There are at least eight on this list that have offers from Pitt. Perhaps the most interesting to Pitt fans are Jeannette’s QB Terrelle Pryor, Thomas Jefferson’s OT Lucas Nix, Aliquippa’s WR/TE Jonathan Baldwin, Gateway’s LB Shayne Hale and Cardinal Mooney’s LB Brandon Beachum.
As we indicated last week the three that are as the very top of our wish list are Pryor, Baldwin and Nix and all three are fastballs right in the Panthers’ wheelhouse.
Lucas Nix (6’ 6” 295) is coached by former Panther Bill Cherpak. His brother Nate Nix is a redshirt freshman at Pitt. We wrote last November this was a player Pitt must land and we think they will. We had an article early this week indicating he now has 35 offers. He has visited Pitt early and often. Several linemen have told us that Pitt tells then they will only take three offensive linemen this year. One of those three should be Nix. The others may come from Pitt’s summer camp. There have been articles this week on Hopewell’s OL Ryan Turley, Manheim Twp’s OL Tim Farley and Trinity’s OL R.J. Dill. They may all need to get to Pitt’s summer camp to get an offer.
The fact that Pitt will only take three lineman means that most of hay is in the barn. If Pitt is going to run the ball successfully and move the program forward Buddy Morris and Paul Dunn will have to do it primarily with players that have already been recruited and signed.
Jonathan Baldwin’s dad played for Pitt. His cousin Josh Lay played for Pitt. At some point down the road you send Aliquippa native Chris LaSalla to go get him and tell him not to come home until he does.
Terrelle Pryor has already committed to Pitt once. There is no reason to believe it can’t be done a second time. Pryor and Baldwin played against each other in WPIAL football and basketball playoffs. They played with each other when the played AAU basketball. Something tells me if you manage to get one it will make it easier to get the other. Good athletes like playing with other good athletes.
Last week we wrote we would like to see Pitt land three quality linebackers. There are several out there we like including the two on the Rivals Top 100 list (Hale and Beachum). We also like Taylor Hill, Justin Staples and Mike Yancich.
Gateway’s Cameron Saddler is a good friend of Hale’s. As we have reported earlier Saddler is also an uncle of Pitt’s DeJuan Blair. Who knows if you land Saddler you just might get Hale.
No player that works has way into the Top 100 is a lock because he will have many, many options but we like Pitt’s chances of landing a few of this list.
We had an article this week on Noah Taylor. His brother Jason Taylor was a bit of a slow developer coming out of Woodland Hills High School. He played for the University of Akron before becoming an All-Pro performer with the Miami Dolphins. He does not have an offer. He will be making the camp circuit this spring. My guess is his bloodlines and his 3.55 GPA will get him one from a Division 1 school before it’s over.
Brashear wide receiver Ed Tinker was at practice yesterday with a teammate Quamane Bryant. Tony spoke to Tinker yesterday. Tinker said he does not think he will make a decision until early this summer but that West Virginia is his early leader. Major Harris who quarterbacked the Mountaineers a couple of years ago is an assistant coach at Brashear.
We will have an article today on a quarterback from Downingtown West and a tight end from Scranton West today. We will also have more photos taken at spring practice. While landi9ng Terrelle Pryor should be Job One at Pitt bringing in a quarterback every year is standard operating procedure. There are 17 quarterbacks in the database with interest in Pitt which suggests the staff is also looking elsewhere will pursuing Pryor.
With the conclusion of the spring practice drills we now enter an Evaluation Period. The Pitt coaching staff is allowed to recruit off campus beginning next week. They will fan out across the state. They will also hit the Baltimore-Washington corridor, upstate New York, South Florida and the Tampa-St Pete area. They are also now allowed to attend the Nike Training Camps.
The War Room is targeted towards our premium customers. We ask that all information reported in the War Room MUST stay right here! That’s the way this deal works. When this information is repeated outside of the Between Fifth and Forbes forum it only cheapens the price of yours and every other die-hard who have purchased premium services. The War Room is one of our more popular features...thank you all for keeping the information on this board.
This post was edited on 4/15 10:44 AM by Jim Pantherlairif(GetAdminCookie() != 0) {document.write(' (Revisions[/URL])');}
Blue-Gold game
Pitt will play their annual Blue-Gold game at Heinz Field on Saturday at 1:00 pm. The coaching staff is trying to work a lot of young players into the two-deep chart. If you go on Saturday please stop back and give us your thoughts.
Pitt will “televise” the spring game free on their All Access service. If you can’t go you might want to watch via the internet.
For those of you that are tied up on Saturday the Pantherlair will be there. Chris and Tony will give you a full report.
Bracket Battle winners
As we reported last week the top four finishers in the Bracket Battle were:
Pittinmd
59andcounting
DORT
Braves2121
The Customer Service Department at Rivals.com has set you up. We tried to notify each of you off-line but a couple of our notifications bounced back which suggests we have an obsolete e-mail address on file for a couple of you.
Once again congratulations to each of our winners.
Jam Fest at Pitt
Next weekend the University of Pittsburgh will host the JAM Fest AAU tournament. Games will be played at a number of basketball courts in the Pittsburgh area including the “Pete” and the Field House. There are several players of interest to Pitt fans that are scheduled to attend.
1) Nasir Robinson – Pitt commit from Chester, PA will play for Team Final.
2) Travon Woodall- Pitt commit-St Anthony’s point guard will play for Playaz.
3) Eloy Vargas-6’ 10” junior forward. He played for American Heritage HS in Hollywood, Florida. Originally from the Dominican Republic. He is scheduled to play with Team Breakdown. We hope you caught the article on Vargas on the Ticker this week.
4) Terrance Boyd-6’ 5” sophomore forward. Played for Oak Hill Academy this past school year. He is scheduled to play for the DC Assault.
5) Roscoe Davis-6’ 9” sophomore forward-Played for Henry Wise HS in Maryland this past year. Expected to play for the DC Assault.
6) Jonathan Baldwin-Junior from Aliquippa-Expected to play for the Pittsburgh Storm.
7) Terrelle Pryor-Junior from Jeannette-Expected to play for the Pittsburgh Storm.
There were well over 70 teams signed up to play in the JAM Fest the last we looked so there certainly will be other players of interest. There are nine teams from the state of Pennsylvania. Rivals.com is scheduled to cover this event this year. There is another tournament in Houston the same weekend so I expect that Jerry Meyer will be at one and Justin Young at the other. College basketball coaches are also allowed to attend because we are in an Evaluation Period. In addition to the Pitt coaches we expect Memphis coach John Calipari and others to attend.
A little more on hoops
The media loves Bob Huggins. He makes writing easy. When the Cincinnati Bearcats hit a little slump a few years back he made his team dress in the girls’ locker room for a week or so telling them they were not worthy to dress in the men’s locker room. They were a disgrace to those that had worn the Bearcats uniform. Within a short period the Bearcats start winning again and his team was allowed back in the men’s locker room. The media loves this type of story.
The Big East has some high profile basketball coaches with Bob Huggins, Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun, Jay Wright, Jamie Dixon, Tom Crean, Rick Pitino and John Thompson. They all have won and they all make good copy.
ESPN Magazine has a large article this week on Maggie Dixon. Good stuff!
The newspapers have reported DeJuan Blair received a qualifying score on his SAT exams. No player is eligible until he has graduated from high school. We recall reading along the way that he had a course or two that he had to make up. We are not sure where he stands but we do not recall a player that had qualifying board scores that did not eventually qualify. Blair has the hard part behind him. We feel confident that the classroom work will be made up at some point.
Recruiting roundup
This week Rival.com updated their Pre-evaluation Top 100. They will do it again in late May. You can be pretty sure that anyone of the current list will be four-star or five-star prospect when they get around to passing out the stars.
There are at least eight on this list that have offers from Pitt. Perhaps the most interesting to Pitt fans are Jeannette’s QB Terrelle Pryor, Thomas Jefferson’s OT Lucas Nix, Aliquippa’s WR/TE Jonathan Baldwin, Gateway’s LB Shayne Hale and Cardinal Mooney’s LB Brandon Beachum.
As we indicated last week the three that are as the very top of our wish list are Pryor, Baldwin and Nix and all three are fastballs right in the Panthers’ wheelhouse.
Lucas Nix (6’ 6” 295) is coached by former Panther Bill Cherpak. His brother Nate Nix is a redshirt freshman at Pitt. We wrote last November this was a player Pitt must land and we think they will. We had an article early this week indicating he now has 35 offers. He has visited Pitt early and often. Several linemen have told us that Pitt tells then they will only take three offensive linemen this year. One of those three should be Nix. The others may come from Pitt’s summer camp. There have been articles this week on Hopewell’s OL Ryan Turley, Manheim Twp’s OL Tim Farley and Trinity’s OL R.J. Dill. They may all need to get to Pitt’s summer camp to get an offer.
The fact that Pitt will only take three lineman means that most of hay is in the barn. If Pitt is going to run the ball successfully and move the program forward Buddy Morris and Paul Dunn will have to do it primarily with players that have already been recruited and signed.
Jonathan Baldwin’s dad played for Pitt. His cousin Josh Lay played for Pitt. At some point down the road you send Aliquippa native Chris LaSalla to go get him and tell him not to come home until he does.
Terrelle Pryor has already committed to Pitt once. There is no reason to believe it can’t be done a second time. Pryor and Baldwin played against each other in WPIAL football and basketball playoffs. They played with each other when the played AAU basketball. Something tells me if you manage to get one it will make it easier to get the other. Good athletes like playing with other good athletes.
Last week we wrote we would like to see Pitt land three quality linebackers. There are several out there we like including the two on the Rivals Top 100 list (Hale and Beachum). We also like Taylor Hill, Justin Staples and Mike Yancich.
Gateway’s Cameron Saddler is a good friend of Hale’s. As we have reported earlier Saddler is also an uncle of Pitt’s DeJuan Blair. Who knows if you land Saddler you just might get Hale.
No player that works has way into the Top 100 is a lock because he will have many, many options but we like Pitt’s chances of landing a few of this list.
We had an article this week on Noah Taylor. His brother Jason Taylor was a bit of a slow developer coming out of Woodland Hills High School. He played for the University of Akron before becoming an All-Pro performer with the Miami Dolphins. He does not have an offer. He will be making the camp circuit this spring. My guess is his bloodlines and his 3.55 GPA will get him one from a Division 1 school before it’s over.
Brashear wide receiver Ed Tinker was at practice yesterday with a teammate Quamane Bryant. Tony spoke to Tinker yesterday. Tinker said he does not think he will make a decision until early this summer but that West Virginia is his early leader. Major Harris who quarterbacked the Mountaineers a couple of years ago is an assistant coach at Brashear.
We will have an article today on a quarterback from Downingtown West and a tight end from Scranton West today. We will also have more photos taken at spring practice. While landi9ng Terrelle Pryor should be Job One at Pitt bringing in a quarterback every year is standard operating procedure. There are 17 quarterbacks in the database with interest in Pitt which suggests the staff is also looking elsewhere will pursuing Pryor.
With the conclusion of the spring practice drills we now enter an Evaluation Period. The Pitt coaching staff is allowed to recruit off campus beginning next week. They will fan out across the state. They will also hit the Baltimore-Washington corridor, upstate New York, South Florida and the Tampa-St Pete area. They are also now allowed to attend the Nike Training Camps.
The War Room is targeted towards our premium customers. We ask that all information reported in the War Room MUST stay right here! That’s the way this deal works. When this information is repeated outside of the Between Fifth and Forbes forum it only cheapens the price of yours and every other die-hard who have purchased premium services. The War Room is one of our more popular features...thank you all for keeping the information on this board.
This post was edited on 4/15 10:44 AM by Jim Pantherlairif(GetAdminCookie() != 0) {document.write(' (Revisions[/URL])');}
