As previously noted Athlon Sports will be one of the first publications to put out its college football preview. They somewhat-released their All-American squads and like Lindy’s last week make the same call with H.B. Blades and Darrelle Revis.

The newly released Athlon Sports college football annual is the latest to praise Pitt’s defensive duo, naming Revis a first team All-American and Blades a second-team pick. The pair was named to Lindy’s All-America squad last week.

Athlon also lauded Pitt’s incoming recruits, rating the Panthers’ 2006 class as the best in the Big East and No. 11 nationally. Five Pitt players were listed among the nation’s Top 100 Incoming Freshmen, including tight end Nate Byham (No. 25), receiver Dorin Dickerson (No. 36), receiver Elijah Fields (No. 57), offensive lineman Joe Thomas (No. 66) and running back Kevin Collier (No. 99).

Just to clarify, the recruiting rankings Athlon uses are actually from Scout.com.

One of the articles in this year’s mag is ranking the first year of the 23 new coaching hires from 2005. N0 shock that Charlie Weis of ND is at the top. Coach Wannstedt clocks in down at #16.

The first month of the Wannstedt era was a debacle, but the Panthers battled back from a 1–4 start, won four of their last six and ended the year with a winning Big East record.

Greg Robinson at Syracuse came in at #23.