Pitt got a nice commit to improve depth long-term at the linebacker spot. Elias Reynolds verbaled to Pitt last night as expected. The ILB had been committed to Rutgers, but reopened following the turmoil in Piscataway. He’s the third flip from Rutgers to Pitt.

He’s not a high-star recruit, but he has potential. After decommitting from Rutgers, the Brooklyn, NY native had offers from Cuse, Wake Forest, Maryland and Illinois. He narrowed it down to Pitt and the Illini.

“But today I was talking to my parents and decided Pitt was it. We listed pros and cons that we all had and spoke about them and agreed on some and disagreed on some, but they support me in my decision.”

For Reynolds, the decision came down to what he experienced on his official visit to Pitt.

“I just felt like I was at home,” he said. “I felt like I fit in with the recruits, coaches, players and just the people who go there. I have a good relationships with Coach (Rob) Harley, who will be my position coach, and really I have a good relationship with everyone on the staff.”

Harley and Reynolds have built a relationship since the former is Pitt’s linebackers coach and the latter will be a Pitt linebacker. They spent a lot of time watching film during the official visit, and they continued that discussion on Tuesday when Harley visited Reynolds at his home in Queens (NY).

“He took five plays from my highlight film that he saw in games this past season and told me I was making college plays at the high school level,” said Reynolds, 6’3” 229. “He was breaking it down and he said he saw plays that reminded him of Pitt games in the season. He said I can play any of the three spots and possibly make an impact early.

“He said I run well, I have good feet, I can catch the ball – defenders get a bad rap on that – and I can finish. I give 100% on every play. At the end of the day, I just go out and give it my all and ball out.”

While Reynolds has connected with Harley, he also has a strong bond with tight ends coach Tim Salem, who is his primary recruiter at Pitt.

“We have a great connection and a great relationship; if anything I had a great relationship with him before any of the other coaches,” Reynolds said of Salem. “He’s always energetic and he’s a great guy.”

Tim Salem has been big in the NJ recruiting this year. And even with Tim Beckman gone, it had to feel pretty good to get Reynolds to choose Pitt over Illinois after Salem was fired and had whispers that he wasn’t doing much with the recruiting side things.

/begin tangent

The aside on Rutgers, is that their new HC Chris Ash, seems to have taken a realistic approach with the 2016 class. He hasn’t gone too hard to retain the commits that clearly decided to move. Instead focusing on building things back with the New Jersey high school coaches and looking more to the future with recruiting (seems familiar).

“Part of my plan of building a staff, I wanted to get somebody in (a) position that could help build relations with the high school coaches in that state,” Ash said. “As I started to make calls around or received calls or emails, there was one name that kept coming up. It was Rick. I reached out to him and said, I’m not sure who you are, but I need to meet you.

“He came in with a detailed plan of what we should do here at Rutgers to build relationships with high school coaches and promote the game of football here in the state of New Jersey. He had energy, passion. He has love for Rutgers. It was real clear that’s the guy I needed to hire.”

Interestingly, they are looking at all of New Jersey.

It’s been a long desire for coaches of the Rutgers football program to build a pipeline from schools in South Jersey, an area traditionally claimed by Penn State.

Since the turn of the century, Rutgers has had brief periods of success recruiting out of counties south of Exit 98 on the Garden State Parkway and Exit 7-A on the New Jersey Turnpike. But for the most part, the Greg Schiano and Kyle Flood regimes had their biggest recruiting successes outside of South Jersey.

A New Jersey Advance study found that out of 351 New Jersey-grown players who have appeared on a Rutgers roster since 2000, 78.9 percent have come from Central and Northern Jersey counties.

Could make things more interesting for that school in the middle of the state. Not necessarily getting squeezed, so much as facing a lot more competition from every direction with the new staffs at Rutgers and Maryland. While Pitt and Pat Narduzzi have improved. To say nothing of ND, OSU and Michigan constantly trying to snag players from PA. Of course, that is still contingent on Ash actually succeeding at Rutgers. Something that history does not exactly favor.

/end tangent.

There were a couple of almost Pitt targets committing to Syracuse over the weekend. RB Jo-El Shaw out of Woodland Hills. Pitt was more interested in him for the defense, so that played a role in going elsewhere. Michael Clark, an OT from Downingtown also verbaled. Neither truly received offers from Pitt. Most likely because Pitt just doesn’t have the scholarships available.  Not the worst problem to have. Just a little different than in recent years to actually have players wanting to come to Pitt, but not having the room to take them because of bigger fish.

Pitt is just trying to get the last few high end commits at this point. Damar Hamlin is the big local fish. Khaleke Hudson appears to be going elsewhere. Keyshon Camp remains a possibility, but the one time USC commit is waiting until Signing Day to announce.

A little more than two weeks to go.