In a fast and furious nine day blitz Pat Narduzzi and Pitt have landed five of our more highly targeted recruits giving us a successful stretch of commitments that we haven’t seen since the DW years. Four are HS seniors who could fill immediate needs and the fifth is a JUCO transfer who had some troubles at his first school.  They are as follows (rankings by Rivals.com).

4* WR Juwann Winfree a speed demon late of the university of Maryland and Coffeyville, KS Junior College.  Winfree had his share of problems at the University of Maryland and was twice suspended by who may be one of the most incompetent D1 coaches in Randy Edsall.  Reading between the lines it seems that Winfree’s suspensions were due to poor behavior (not criminal or drug related) and poor academics.  He’ll have two years of eligibility left starting next season and we’ll need him to contend for the open WR1 vacancy due to Boyd’s departure.

4* ATH George Hill who had some very nice offers including Nebraska, MSU, OSU and Michigan;

3* CB Henry Miller with offers from a lot of D1 Power 5 schools;

3* OL Zack Williams who had to choose between WVU, UL, Miami and NC State

3* ATH Patrick Campbell with offers from six old-BE schools and Temple.

We also landed 2* OL Harry  Morgan.

I feel this class is shaping up well and am particularly impressed with Pugh, Flowers, Hill, Pine and Central’s Rashad Wheeler at DT. Those are quality kids and players who were wanted by other, stronger, Power 5 schools.   At this point on paper it looks like this class is shaping up to be a solid nucleus to build future teams around.

So there are some blue chip recruits in this 2016 bunch and other kids who may really shine out on the field.  Almost all D1 program has success not just due to the 5* and 4* players but also to the 3* players who play above predictions to get starting jobs early on and hold them with marked progression each year of play.  Then there is the consensus 2* players who blow up and carry teams on their shoulders – Pitt’s Greg Romeus and Devin Street come to mind here.

Look at this 2016 class I see some stars in the making, just as I am also sure that some won’t pan out at all.  Some of the blue chippers in this class will fail to meet expectations or just fail altogether.  Why? Because that is what happens in college football.  As fun and exciting fans are about their schools landing valuable and coveted recruits sometime reality of their careers and the expectations for these players clash.

Let’s take a moment and reminisce about Pitt recruiting for a bit, especially taking a look at Pitt recruiting’s over the last 11 years (so to capture both DW’s and PNs first full seasons).

Tabled below are the Rivals.com star awards for our 2005 – 2015 recruiting classes… you use can use the drop-down box in the Rivals link to see the specific year you want.   I always use Rivals.com as a basis when discussing local recruiting because I think they have been more accurate with their predictions than the other three recruiting sites (ESPN, 247 and Scouts) and because I want to remain constant when referencing recruiting info –  stars, offers, offers, predictions, etc… and especially when comparing recruiting classes instead of jumping in-between four sites’ info.

These commercial recruiting sites differ in how they approach the business of awarding stars to prospective recruits.  This article, while a bit dated, still accurately reflects how these sites see things.  Here is the author’s take on how Rival awards their star and numerical rankings:

RIVALS.COM

Rivals rates players based on the impact they are expected to have at their new school and their stars are a little more flexible — and more generous — than Scout:

A five-star prospect is considered to be one of the nation’s top 25-30 players, four star is a top 250-300 or so player, three-stars is a top 750 level player, two stars means the player is a mid-major prospect and one star means the player is not ranked.

Rivals also assigns each player a number in their evaluation. Here’s what they mean.

6.1 Franchise Player; considered one of the elite prospects in the country, generally among the nation’s top 25 players overall; deemed to have excellent pro potential; high-major prospect

6.0-5.8 All-American Candidate; high-major prospect; considered one of the nation’s top 300 prospects; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team

5.7-5.5 All-Region Selection; considered among the region’s top prospects and among the top 750 or so prospects in the country; high-to-mid-major prospect; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team

5.4-5.0 Division I prospect; considered a mid-major prospect; deemed to have limited pro potential but definite Division I prospect; may be more of a role player

4.9 Sleeper; no Rivals.com expert knew much, if anything, about this player; a prospect that only a college coach really knew about

(Rivals 5* recruits are awarded 6.1 points and their 4* players are 6.0-5.8 points)

Note the phrase “based on the impact they are expected to have at their new school…” which means Rivals look forward and tries to predict how the player’s career in college ball is going to turn out.  Scouts.com on the other hand ranks players on their talent relative to the other HS seniors in the recruiting pool.

When I use the phrase “Blue Chip” it’s to describe who Rivals labels as 5* or 4* HS seniors.   Some explanation of that label and the table below is in order: Essentially, it is my opinion whether these players  lived up to the potential star billing awarded to them by Rivals.  I do not consider any 5* and 4* recruit who only stayed on the roster, played sparingly, and/or started maybe a year or two to have fulfilled Rivals lofty predictions.

So, let’s look at the reference chart below. I used last names because I figure we are all pretty familiar with these players and know what positions they played… although we would need a whole new table for how DW shifted Dorin Dickerson around! Players who “met” expectations are in bold type.

What we see here is an accounting of the ‘prospective’ success that Rivals had advised us these 42 kids would achieve (stars awarded) and what I believe actually happened once they put on a Pitt uniform.

To me that reads of a very suspect history of how our blue-chip kids have turned out. Other schools have the same problems but the attrition at Pitt over our scrambled and screwed up last five years accounted  for a possible eight transfers out of the program and that is a hell of a lot of ‘talent’ for a school like ours to lose.  Assuming of course those 4* players who quit or transferred lived up to the billing… and none did in my opinion.  Again, discussing this in the reference of what they were predicted to do based on starts and points… not how they actually played.

Look at Chad Voytik again here: he came in as a highly touted 4* & 5.9 point QB and was expected to be a multi-year starter and to live up to this definition of a 5.9 player – “6.0-5.8 All-American Candidate; high-major prospect; considered one of the nation’s top 300 prospects; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team.”

I don’t think anyone can say that happened with Voytik.  Did he contribute? Hell yes he did and we all appreciated it… but did he live up to the lofty prediction? No.

I think you can say the same of: Collier, Duhart, Bostick, Wright, Tucker,  Saddler, Burns, Hale, Lippert, Mason (??), Murphy, Myers, Mosley-Smith, Grigsby, Shell, Rippy and Chapman.

I say Mason because I’m looking at this just as we are looking at Narduzzi’s class right now and prediction each kid will play a full four years at Pitt.  In that case Mason (injury) is debatable in-theory.  But i believe that when Chris Burns, Shell, Rippy, Murphy, Myers, Chapman, Voytik, etc… transferred or quit Pitt didn’t get full 4* value from those players even when they played and in some cases were starters.

Why did it transpire this way?

The head coaches’ responsible for getting these recruits signed and onboard are: Harris, Wannstedt, Graham, Chryst and Narduzzi.  Five HCs in a 10 year period and the turmoil in engendered accounts  for the rather low number of 5* and 4* recruits.  This is borne out by looking at the mid-DW years (2006-2008) when there was excitement about the Pitt program and having a homeboy who would stay forever as the HC. He averaged 6.3 blue chip recruits per year over that three year span.

It was those ’06-’08 recruits who gave us the best three year W-L record the program has had since the early 1980’s when Marino and friends went 33-3.  When those ’06-’08 recruits had a year or two under their belts we won 9,10 and 8 games respectively.  I personally was not enamored with Wannstedt’s actual football coaching nor much with his staff’s – although I think his DCs were pretty effective.

Therefore I do believe in the phrase “You have to have Jimmys and Joes as well as Xs and Os“.  To me the players are first and foremost the resource necessary to have a winning season.  If there isn’t talent, drive and desire in each kid on the roster the stars don’t really mean a damned thing.  Of course it is up to the coaching staff itself to 1) try to identify those traits in a prospective recruit – along with that recruit’s raw talent level, and 2) the staff has to be good and sharp enough to get the best they can out of each player in practices and in games.

We have seen that done very well by Narduzzi in his first year at Pitt.  Over the offseason we here on the Blather discussed the question of whether the two deep players were talented and not well coached or were just not talented enough to have winning seasons.  Well, with the same cast svae a true FR in Whitehead Narduzzi and his staff showed us those kids do have talent to be in a winning program.

Now, there I am talking about the game of football only.  I’m not even going to touch on the other half on the player’s adjustments to college itself, new friends and teammates, and staff.

I think Narduzzi inherited a tough recruiting situation given the below-.500 three years of Paul Chryst.  It isn’t easy recruiting the best players to a new staff when the program has been limping along prior.  So I think he’s done well in tough circumstances in his first partial and full recruiting classes.

What is more impressive to me than this recruiting class, which as I said I’m not over the moon about, is the excitement he has generated since he has been here and how that factor has overrun the negative aspects of the recent past to allow him a to post a good rookie HC recruiting class, and with his setting up better classes in the future by having a winning record his rookie year.

I’ve no doubt that on the horizon we’ll have better players looking at Pitt first among schools under consideration, but I’m not going to over-estimate the level of quality I think is in this class just because Narduzzi is the current HC.

For some other interesting info; here is a quick table showing what number of 5* and 4* kids Pitt has recruited by year and stars awarded by each recruiting site over the last five years.

Note: Numbers in parentheses are the numbers of players that committed to the incoming new head coach:

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