Pitt Spring Practice #9; April 2, 2015
Pitt Live Wire Blog
PITT is moving into its final six practices of the spring sessions and starting a five day hiatus to allow the players time off over the Easter vacation weekend. How the rest of the practices break down is they will resume on Tuesday April 7th and have four straight practices in pads, then one in shorts (of the required three non-pad practices mandated by the NCAA) the end up with the Spring Game on Saturday, April 18th – see you there!
There has been a surprising level of very positive chatter about rsJR Mike Caprara since the spring drills opened. We PITT fans know him as the ‘undersized’ Woodland Hills linebacker who broke the school’s record for tackles in a career… no small feat considering the prominence of Woodland Hills in WPIAL football.
This is something of a theme this week as just the other day we were hearing and reading about SO DE Rori Blair being ‘undersized’ for the starting role. Personally, I think that a strong drive for success, a big heart and intelligence can make up for a lot of physical shortcomings. One way of accommodating situations like these is to put those smaller guys in the right position to succeed, such as Conklin’s moving Caprara from the MLB position and utilizing his speed and quickness on the outside. Honestly, I have like Caprara since his recruitment and am hyped to see him get some real playing time. You don’t do what he did in HS without some real talent and desire involved.
On a side note it is interesting that Woodland Hills has pumped out a bunch of major football players in its history. In 2012 alone they had five alumni on NFL rosters: Rob Gronkowski, Ryan Mundy, Darrin Walls, Shawntae Spencer and Steve Breston. Not a bad snapshot of talent and to think that Caprara bested all of the past defensive players from that HS. Aside from Spencer they all made poor college choices of course.
