Joey Porter Jr. is the latest WPIAL guy to throw shade at Pitt.
Porter, who was a three-star recruit out of North Allegheny in the class of 2019, committed to Penn State over the likes of Arizona State, Boston College, Cincinnati, LSU, Miami, Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers, Syracuse and WVU (the majority of which are typical WPIAL offers). He turned into an NFL cornerback, now playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he was asked about his college recruitment on a recent podcast appearance.
He said this about not picking Pitt:
"The thing with Pitt was like, I really wanted to go to Pitt, but they didn't recruit in their backyard enough that I felt like. And I felt like even our 7-on-7 team, Evolve, like we had so many top guys, even 412, they had so many top guys, and they just never really recruited out of that pool, so I was just like if my guy's not going, I'm not going. So, that's really what was going on with Pitt."
So, we've got one former WPIAL recruit saying Pitt was too late, and now we've got another saying Pitt didn't offer enough recruits from the area.
Pitt offered Andrew Kristofic (Pine-Richland, Notre Dame), Joey Porter Jr. (North Allegheny, Penn State), Dino Tomlin (Shady Side, Maryland), M.J. Devonshire (Aliquippa, Kentucky), Mike Katic (Pine-Richland, Indiana) in that class, for reference. The top guys in the class. Funny enough, Katic is the one who recently said he felt disrespected by Pitt offering him too late.
It's an interesting (to put it lightly) dynamic. Pitt has picked up plenty of WPIAL commitments in recent seasons (and while they didn't pick up any of Porter's NA teammates), they did land:
DE Dayon Hayes and P Cam Guess in 2020, DE Nahki Johnson, DT Elliot Donald, S Stephon Hall, DT Dorien Ford (and eventually ATH Derrick Davis Jr. and S Donovan McMillon) in 2021, DT Sean FitzSimmons in 2022, S Cruce Brookins and LB Braylan Lovelace in 2023, LB Cam Lindsey, QB Julian Dugger and DT Ty Yuhas in 2024 and OL Shep Turk in 2025.
What's the common denominator there?
