It’s a big one. If you check the Scout.com list of players visiting this weekend, it’s very surprising to see a few 4-star players this late in the game for Coach Todd Graham. Especially when you consider there isn’t even a basketball game at the Pete involved in the visit.
Lafayette Pitts, despite his verbal to Rutgers, is still coming for a visit it seems. Not sure if it makes a difference or not. Considering Pitt’s need at cornerback, it can’t hurt to keep trying up until Tuesday.
On top of all of that, there is a decision Friday looming that could have an impact.
After a month of twists and turns in his recruitment, Chicago Simeon offensive lineman Chris Bryant will officially select his college destination Friday during a 7:30 p.m. ceremony at his school. That will bring to an end a four-way battle for supremacy that has seen Michigan, Pittsburgh, Illinois and Arizona pull out all of the stops in recent weeks to earn his commitment.
All but Arizona had Bryant on their campus in January, and head coaches from Michigan and Pittsburgh are last up on his in-home visit docket this week. Some of those interactions have taken on added significance, however, because of Bryant’s relative lack of familiarity with a few of the coaches now courting him.
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“(Pittsburgh) is a great city,” Bryant told Scout.com after his Jan. 15 official visit. “It reminds me of Chicago. I love that they share their facilities with the Steelers. Everything there is quality. (New Pitt head coach Todd Graham) is cool and down-to-earth. He’s a players’ coach and I think he’ll do great there. They run a spread and we run a spread at my high school. Coach Graham thinks I’d be a good fit in their offense. I was getting recruited by Coach Magee (Pitt’s new offensive coordinator), from when he was at Michigan, so he and I have a great relationship too.”
Bryant looked like a lean/lock for Michigan before the coaching chaos. Now he seems completely up-in-the-air. He was effusive about the other programs as well, so don’t read too much into the comments beyond the fact that Pitt is one of the last four.
Meanwhile some direct comments from Pitt’s most recent commit Malcolm Crockett on his decision on Pitt.
“I committed to Cincinnati and the coaches were cool, I went there and had a good time but I felt like I shot the gun a little too early,” Crockett said. “After I was with the commitment for a while, I was still visiting schools and had a good relationship with the coaches at Michigan. Ann Arbor is a cool place. But the whole staff got fired and the coaches I had a good relationship with went to Pittsburgh.
“The next thing I knew, I received an offer from Pittsburgh. It didn’t hurt to go check it out. I went there this past weekend. It’s a lovely place, a football city, the people are genuine and the school speaks for itself.”
Michigan, unsurprisingly, had not stopped wooing Crockett after his verbal to Cinci. No comment from Crockett about Poteat’s verbal to Cinci playing any role in his decommit.
Finally, on Signing Day, Coach Todd Graham will make it onto ESPNU’s signing day special.
Interviews with as many as 20 BCS Conference coaches will be part of the telecast, including Bobby Petrino (Arkansas); Mark Richt (Georgia); Dan Mullen (Mississippi State); Butch Davis (North Carolina); Brian Kelly (Notre Dame); Todd Graham (Pittsburgh); Doug Marrone (Syracuse); Gary Patterson (TCU); and Mike London (Virginia).
[Emphasis added.]
The telecast runs from 9am-7pm, but odds are any coach interviews won’t take place until after 1pm. After most/all signings are complete.
I’m sorry, but shame on any high school for doing something like this. Being selected by NASA for a space mission? Yeah. Playing football at college? Please. When is the statute being dedicated?
Of course, if I had gotten “statue” (as opposed to statute) right, it would have been even better. I guess drinking before 5 really does have its benefits. Cheers!
Okay, off of soapbox now. I really hope he comes to Pitt!
It is Friday! I raise my Laphroaig to you, it’s 5:00 somewhere.
No doubt he was moved by the newly arrived Pitt coaches on Schiano’s staff!
DaveD
Beaver Falls TE Devin Cook will be visiting Pitt this weekend and, according to Scout, will likely commit this weekend.
West Palm Beach (Fla.) William T. Dwyer cornerback Darrell Hunter has been committed to Bowling Green since mid-December, but he’ll make his final decision on college tomorrow and Pitt is in the running.
Ohio LB Nicholas Grigsby, a four-star prospect ranked among the top 20 inside linebackers in the nation, will visit Pitt this weekend and Pitt may be in the lead for his services.
Orlando 3-star FL safety Roderick Ryles (6’1” 185 lb 4.5 speed) was a late addition to Pitt’s recruiting target list and Pitt is in his top four after an official visit this past weekend.
Lloyd Carrington, a 3-star CB from TX, is looking forward to his weekend trip to Pitt – he’s 6’0 with 4.43 speed.
Four star LB Dominique Petties will be up this weekend at Pitt. He “is an athletic, fast outside linebacker/safety hybrid that is capable of playing near the box as well as in space. He has a thick, strong build on a sturdy frame and will probably tap out at about 225 given his height.” He’s only played football for a couple of years.
Here are two QBs we are looking at (with video links):
Michael Eubank id the 4-star QB from CA who is coming in this weekend – big kid (6’5” 220 lb with a lot of muscle) with a nice arm a decent speed for a big kid: link to youtube.com
Eubank is down to Pitt, Arizona St, and Utah – he’s be a great “get” for the new staff. He comes from a pass happy offense – he has a HUGE arm and can pack a punch when he runs.
Cormac Craigie is the lessen known and lower rated QB from NY (6’2”) that we are looking at: – can pass and run: link to youtube.com
If Graham can do one transparent right thing it will be to open up the competition at every single position. Not one player on PITT’s starting 2010 lineup was so good at what he did that he should be considered a ‘lock’ as a starter next season – especially with a complete changeover in offensive and defensive philosophies.
I’m sure we’ll see some familiar faces as starters in 2011 – the OL will have returners as will the DL, but I anticipate some pretty big changes at other positions. RB will be Graham I’d think – but we need to see that even these kids were pushed hard by returning roster kids and newcomers.
I truly believe that the inability to do this in earnest, over every offseason, was a large part of what led to DW’s situation. Competition, true competition, makes every single kid on the roster better when a prospective starter has to look over his shoulder knowing that the HC is willing to go with someone else. It sends a message that a complacence attitude isn’t going to be tolerated… a message that players like Baldwin and others could have used in triplicate.
Another outfall of NOT doing this is the very real feeling the ‘outsiders’ get when they know they weren’t given a fair shot to win a starting position. That creates problems individually, as well as collectively in the locker room, which was borne out in spades with PITT last season.
In recent years, Pitt was always ranked as one of the least penalized, yet this year’s team, was just the opposite. I refuse to believe that the coaches coached any differently this year.
I’m not saying that the coaching was that good, I just think it is very obvious that many of the players were reading their press clippings of just how good they and the team was supposed to be .. and obviously the expectations of this team was way too high.
WBB- you said “I refuse to believe that the coaches coached any differently this year.” and that leads me to believe that you meant during the actual games… and that may be correct in a sense.
But Dave Wannstedt made some highly visible off the field decisions that, IMO, strongly sent negative messages to the players on the roster – and in turn effected how the kids felt about the 2010 season. All but naming Sunseri as a starter directly after the 2009 bowl game, and not giving any other QB even one 1st string snap in practice was one – that strong show of favoritism with any previous results by Sunseri to justify it was horrendous.
His inaction to hold Jabaal Sheard accountable in any real way for his incident was another… it was a blatant CYA situation for DW when he realized that Romeus wasn’t going to be able to produce… then dismissing non-star players for incidents that paled in comparison to Sheard’s had to send a message to the rest of the players that equitable treatment just wasn’t going to happen. Anyone who knows the first thing about leadership understands that the minute you play favorites you lose control of your charges.
There were other examples also but one that became very clear as the season wore on – and that was brought to public attention rather dramatically – was the relationship between Baldwin and Sunseri. Baldwin’s texts to that writer didn’t surprise me one bit. I and fellow PITT fans were talking about how you could see that they had problems if you watched how they (didn’t) interact when the defense was on the field… and how Baldwin would put on Kabuki theater on the field when he didn’t get the ball thrown to him.
That situation should have been handled quickly and firmly but Cignetti first and DW second but never was. Baldwin was, going into the 2010 season, our biggest homerun threat and arguably our biggest offensive weapon – along with Lewis. Yet the coaching staff allowed that to dwindle to nothing as the season progressed. And you can rest assured that if PITT fans could tell there was a problem in that area – the other players had intimate knowledge of what was going on.
these are not just head-scratching situations where one looks at them and goes ‘wonder why DW did that” but were clear and obvious warning signals that something was fundamentally wrong with the coaching staff and the team itself.
It showed very clearly on the field of play also…PITT started off poorly and went downhill from the opening game on. Not once in any game that mattered at all did we play like everyone though we could – we won games against teams that were inferior to our strengths but couldn’t rise up to win against equal or better teams – that seven win regular season was, IMO, equivalent to an abject failure in a lot of ways.
You say that the team leaders are to blame and I’ll disagree. It is almost impossible to expect peers to do what people in authority couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be able to accomplish themselves.
