Sorry, about the absence. Some family stuff came up last week that had me in-and-out-of-town through the past week plus. Nothing major, but time was at a premium.
Glad to be done with April. Fridays in April have been a month of bad news dropping. Most of it was related to basketball, but football decided to get in on the action with the dismissal of Jeremiah Taleni for disciplinary reasons.
To say this was surprising is being polite. Taleni was going to be a senior and expected to start at Defensive Tackle. He was receiving high praise from the coaches all spring for his leadership off-the-field and and his performance in practices.
Head Coach Pat Narduzzi has rules that get enforced with player behavior, but he is not a one-strike-and-out authoritarian coach. He gives players second chances, so either Taleni has continued to mess up off-the-field or he did something that crossed all lines for Narduzzi.
On-the-field, the loss of Taleni is obviously a blow to the depth on the D-line. A constant issue the last couple years that finally seemed to be getting better.
Replacing Taleni as the starter will likely be Amir Watts or Keyshon Camp. There will be plenty of competition come the fall. Not just between the two of them.
Aside from Camp and Watts, Pitt returns two upperclassmen at defensive tackle – redshirt juniors Shane Roy and Mike Herndon – and redshirt freshman Rashad Wheeler.
JUCO transfer Kam Carter will join the team as a redshirt sophomore this offseason, as will incoming freshman Jaylen Twyman. Carter will be in the mix for playing time, but Camp and Watts remain the most likely candidates for the starting jobs.
In addition to the increased depth, the drop-off after the starters should be smaller. Still, Taleni was being counted on as a team leader up front, and this isn’t great.
Seriously. Can we stop it with the Friday bad news drops.
The other big thing was the NFL Draft.
Pitt’s pro football pipeline continued this weekend with the selection of five Panthers in the 2017 NFL Draft. The five picks mark Pitt’s highest total since the 2011 draft.
Pitt had plenty of players drafted and many more as undrafted free agents and/or invited to compete at mini camps.
With James Conner getting drafted by the Steelers at the very end of the 3d round as the big story. Hope everyone is okay with even more Steelers jerseys at Pitt games next year (though, I’d like to think it might mean a few more Pitt jerseys showing up at Steelers games as well).
Dorian Johnson slipped into the 4th round to the Cardinals, because teams flagged him for an issue with his liver. It shouldn’t have any effect on his play, but it did make teams back off of him.
Nate Peterman got Tom Savage’d. He got lots of pre-draft publicity and run. Lots of pundits talking him up, but ultimately he didn’t go until the 5th round to the Bills.
Adam Bisnowaty was a 6th round choice for the Giants and Ejuan Price went in round 7 to the Rams.
…a slew of other Panthers either signed with teams as undrafted free agents or received invitations to rookie camps. They are:
Scott Orndoff – signed with Steelers
Tyrique Jarrett – signed with Broncos
Shakir Soto – signed with Broncos
Ryan Lewis – signed with Cardinals
Dontez Ford – signed with Lions
Bam Bradley – signed with Ravens
Terrish Webb – signed with Steelers
Matt Galambos – invite by Chiefs
Reggie Mitchell – invite by Steelers
John Guy – invite by Vikings
Kicker Chris Blewitt also has been invited to the Steelers mini-camp.
Has anyone noticed the expanded role of Louis Reddick
on ESPN?? Reddick a former Pitt star making it in the big time.
Slice may be recruiting well for St. John’s. Mullins could be gaining ground with his program.
It’s what Dixon used to do; force a few transfer.
I say extend him before it is too late. Right Barnes?
He is gone, isn’t he?
And seriously, looks like a good risk. No idea why they’re bringing in the guy from Lafayette though to visit…??
Over his four year career at Lafayette Monty Boykins was 37% FG and 34% 3P shooter. He shot 38% from the field and 36% from 3 during his last full season as a junior.
It doesn’t appear that Boykins handles the ball very well based upon 1:1 A-TO and he also doesn’t rebound averaging 1.8 rpg over his career.
Lafayette was 46-78 over the four years that Boykins played there.
People so desperately want to believe at this point that they’ll accept almost any warm body as a useful contributor.
Boy, that KS is SLICK. Good thing we got him on the rebound (no pun intended!)
Must admit I was wrong for the second time.
Crosby’s concussion NOT caused by his Helmet hitting the ice.
Combination of Ovechkin’s stick to the Head followed by Niskanen’s WHACK to the back of the Head.
The more you see it, the worse it looks. Both should have been suspended at least a Game.ens
Pens in 7. Hopefully, less.
I’m not sure if you noticed the poster comments on the other blog entries but once the comment section goes over 50, the previous 50 comments disappear. I’m not sure if it’s a setting issue on your side or if the host site has changed. Just a friendly FYI though.