From the Desk of Jim Snyder
If you missed the interview on Rivals Radio by Dennis Dodd from CBS Sportsline.com, please check it out. Go to the Rivals Radio page. The interview has been archived. He covers college football for them and talks extensively about Panther Coach Dave Wannstedt and the Pitt football program. Check it out.
This is a good year for quarterbacks in Pennsylvania. We have had the opportunity to watch film on several of them and it is a very deep class. You could have three four-star quarterbacks and in addition there are a number of solid quarterbacks in Western PA. Pitt had a number of them in for their last Junior Day although only Pat Devlin has an offer. The MAC schools would be wise to hit this group hard. They could come away with another Ben Roethlisburger, Chad Pennington or Bryon Leftwich. It would be easy for the BCS schools to overlook a solid quarterback with a lot of potential.
We have several videos of juniors at Rivals for editing. You will be seeing them over the next few weeks. A few of the larger schools have recently sent us DVD’s. Some of these are really slick. One segment will show offensive highlights and one section will show defensive highlights. They will also have a full game in a third segment. In addition, there are segments that feature the players bio or awards. One shows the player working out in the weight room. It all moves recruiting to a new level. It is too bad all high schools do not have these capabilities.
Rivals.com is scheduled to change the default year in the football database from 2005 to 2006 next week. It sure will make it easier to follow rising seniors. Rivals.com is now starting to build some history. If you want to check a prior year you can now go back to the Class of 2002. Simply use the year toggle.
Rivals.com is rolling out a new NCAA brackets game. Once they announce the parings Sunday night make sure you fill out your brackets. We will give one-month free service to the four Pitt fans that have the best score. You have to play to win!
This past week we put out a list of the Top 35 prospects in the state of Pennsylvania. We think this will be a very deep year. There is an old saying that states, “Timing is everything”. Dave Wannstedt may have picked the right time to return to college coaching. This early list is a first draft. We will update it approximately every six weeks as we view videotape and watch players in camps. Hopefully we will have a better read by the time Rivals.com starts ranking players late this summer. There are a number of very good-looking linemen out there and it is a deep year for quarterbacks. We will expand this list to the Top 50 as we go along in the process.
Dave Wannstedt will take his team to their first spring practice on Saturday March 19th. We are only a week away. We will have reporters at a number of practices but you can’t see it all. If you see or hear things from the spring practices please pass it along to share it with all of our subscribers on the Between Fifth & Forbes Board.
We will try a new depth-chart in about a week. We will keep updating it as we get reports from spring practice so pass them along. We will not include freshman that are reporting in September. They will have to wait their turn until fall practice. We hear reports they are trying to upgrade the speed of the defense by moving players around. Linebackers are being moved to defensive ends, defensive ends are being moved to defensive tackle and safeties to linebackers. The goal is to improve team speed.
As you maybe aware, Rivals.com has a tie into the Nike Camp through Student Sports who is an affiliate of the Rivals network. In addition, Rivals is holding a Blue Chip combine at Rutgers on May 22. If you know of a legitimate Division 1A prospects that wants to go, let me know and I will put them in touch with the right people. Write me at jrsnyder04@comcast.net.
We were speaking to Coach Jim Tkach of Northern Lehigh this past week. Pitt has offered his son Tyler Tkach. He had a lot of nice things to say about Coach Dave Wannstedt and his staff. He felt that he was a down to earth guy. He was impressed by the way Coach Wannstedt took the time to sign autographs for young kids. He liked the fact that he has several former Pitt players on his staff. Coach Tkach said it could come to a battle between Pitt and Notre Dame who is also actively recruiting him.
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.
Note to Pantherlair.com Fans: The staff at Pantherlair.com works diligently to bring you the best information on University of Pittsburgh football and basketball recruiting (in addition to game coverage). Thousands of Panther fans visit our site on a daily basis. We have received a tremendous amount of e-mail thanking us for our efforts. If you like our site, please feel free to tell other fans about it. “Spread the word” and let’s add to our online family of Panther fans.
If you missed the interview on Rivals Radio by Dennis Dodd from CBS Sportsline.com, please check it out. Go to the Rivals Radio page. The interview has been archived. He covers college football for them and talks extensively about Panther Coach Dave Wannstedt and the Pitt football program. Check it out.
This is a good year for quarterbacks in Pennsylvania. We have had the opportunity to watch film on several of them and it is a very deep class. You could have three four-star quarterbacks and in addition there are a number of solid quarterbacks in Western PA. Pitt had a number of them in for their last Junior Day although only Pat Devlin has an offer. The MAC schools would be wise to hit this group hard. They could come away with another Ben Roethlisburger, Chad Pennington or Bryon Leftwich. It would be easy for the BCS schools to overlook a solid quarterback with a lot of potential.
We have several videos of juniors at Rivals for editing. You will be seeing them over the next few weeks. A few of the larger schools have recently sent us DVD’s. Some of these are really slick. One segment will show offensive highlights and one section will show defensive highlights. They will also have a full game in a third segment. In addition, there are segments that feature the players bio or awards. One shows the player working out in the weight room. It all moves recruiting to a new level. It is too bad all high schools do not have these capabilities.
Rivals.com is scheduled to change the default year in the football database from 2005 to 2006 next week. It sure will make it easier to follow rising seniors. Rivals.com is now starting to build some history. If you want to check a prior year you can now go back to the Class of 2002. Simply use the year toggle.
Rivals.com is rolling out a new NCAA brackets game. Once they announce the parings Sunday night make sure you fill out your brackets. We will give one-month free service to the four Pitt fans that have the best score. You have to play to win!
This past week we put out a list of the Top 35 prospects in the state of Pennsylvania. We think this will be a very deep year. There is an old saying that states, “Timing is everything”. Dave Wannstedt may have picked the right time to return to college coaching. This early list is a first draft. We will update it approximately every six weeks as we view videotape and watch players in camps. Hopefully we will have a better read by the time Rivals.com starts ranking players late this summer. There are a number of very good-looking linemen out there and it is a deep year for quarterbacks. We will expand this list to the Top 50 as we go along in the process.
Dave Wannstedt will take his team to their first spring practice on Saturday March 19th. We are only a week away. We will have reporters at a number of practices but you can’t see it all. If you see or hear things from the spring practices please pass it along to share it with all of our subscribers on the Between Fifth & Forbes Board.
We will try a new depth-chart in about a week. We will keep updating it as we get reports from spring practice so pass them along. We will not include freshman that are reporting in September. They will have to wait their turn until fall practice. We hear reports they are trying to upgrade the speed of the defense by moving players around. Linebackers are being moved to defensive ends, defensive ends are being moved to defensive tackle and safeties to linebackers. The goal is to improve team speed.
As you maybe aware, Rivals.com has a tie into the Nike Camp through Student Sports who is an affiliate of the Rivals network. In addition, Rivals is holding a Blue Chip combine at Rutgers on May 22. If you know of a legitimate Division 1A prospects that wants to go, let me know and I will put them in touch with the right people. Write me at jrsnyder04@comcast.net.
We were speaking to Coach Jim Tkach of Northern Lehigh this past week. Pitt has offered his son Tyler Tkach. He had a lot of nice things to say about Coach Dave Wannstedt and his staff. He felt that he was a down to earth guy. He was impressed by the way Coach Wannstedt took the time to sign autographs for young kids. He liked the fact that he has several former Pitt players on his staff. Coach Tkach said it could come to a battle between Pitt and Notre Dame who is also actively recruiting him.
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.
Note to Pantherlair.com Fans: The staff at Pantherlair.com works diligently to bring you the best information on University of Pittsburgh football and basketball recruiting (in addition to game coverage). Thousands of Panther fans visit our site on a daily basis. We have received a tremendous amount of e-mail thanking us for our efforts. If you like our site, please feel free to tell other fans about it. “Spread the word” and let’s add to our online family of Panther fans.
