In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re breaking down the latest in Pitt recruiting, from prospect camps to official visits to commitments.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
Back to work
I keep saying that it’s good to be back to work, but then I realize that’s not entirely accurate.
I mean, work has been fun the last two weeks, what with recruiting visits and camps happening again. But it’s not like me and Jim and Houston and Steve and everybody else on the site wasn’t working for the last 15 months. We were all grinding away, producing content every day to give the readers of Panther-Lair.com something to digest and discuss.
We were working.
And yet…
There’s something different about covering recruiting visits. Pitt had plenty of recruiting news last year and there were some really busy days, particularly in the spring. But when recruits can actually step onto campus – that’s when the real fun starts.
And it started in the last two weeks. There was the big WPIAL/City League visit night, when Pitt used the first day of in-person recruiting since March 2020 to bring some of the region’s top prospects to the South Side.
Two days later, the coaches hosted 10 seniors-to-be for official visits – the largest official visit for Pitt since 10 prospects came to campus in late June 2019.
And the day after the official visits ended, Pitt staged its first prospect camp in two years.
That’s what a week of recruiting in June is supposed to look like.
Granted, this year’s first visit weekend didn’t produce any immediate commitments, but we’ll talk about that in a minute. And while the prospect camp on Sunday featured hundreds of players, just a few of them are likely Power Five targets.
But that was no problem. It was good just to work the phones all morning on Saturday, trying to get as many guys on the horn as possible before they flew home from their official visits. Just like it was good to be in the South Side again on Sunday – first time I’ve been at Pitt’s facility in 15 months – admiring the new decorations in the indoor or regretting not putting on sunscreen while standing on the outdoor fields at midday.
It was good to be back.
In the last year, we’ve learned a lot about what we can do remotely for work. The experience of 2020 left me with questions about the need to travel to road football games when I have found that I can stay home, watch the game, still tune into the post-game press conference and then fire up a live stream video. Covering games remotely is not ideal, but it can be done, and there might even be some upside to it.
Recruiting, on the other hand, has certain components that can only really be done in-person. And finally, 15 months after the last in-person recruiting visits and nearly two years since the last big official visit weekend and prospect camps, it was happening again.
I don’t know about you, but that was a nice step toward normal.
No commitments, no surprise
One thing that wasn’t normal about the last week was that it didn’t produce any commitments despite having several elements that generally portend a run of commitments.
Specifically, it was June and Pitt hosted an official visit weekend.
In the summers of 2018 and 2019, the June official visit weekends were all-you-can-eat buffets for the Pitt staff. In June 2018, Calijah Kancey, Brandon Hill, Bryce Nelms, Vincent Davis, Davis Beville, Deandre Jules and Jason Collier all committed on or shortly after their official visits. A year later, Solomon DeShields, Emmanuel Belgrave, Bangally Kamara, Hunter Sellers, Jordan Addison, Dayon Hayes, AJ Roberts, Jahvante Royal and Aydin Henningham committed on their visits (Israel Abanikanda did, too, although he didn’t announce for a week or two).
And that’s to say nothing of guys like Brandon Mack and Khadry Jackson and Tee Denson and Henry Parrish, who committed to Pitt on their official visits but ended up signing elsewhere.
June is always good month for recruiting, and the addition of official visits three years ago turned things up to 11.
So it was only natural to hear the question after Pitt’s first big official visit weekend failed to produce similar results:
Where are the commits?
Well, there weren’t any, but if you were paying attention, that shouldn’t be a surprise. In fact, I think I said that would be the case a few weeks ago in the One Prediction section of another 3-2-1 Column (which is wild, because I almost always get those predictions wrong – except for this time).
I wasn’t shocked by the lack of commitments. It made sense, really, if you consider it from the perspective of the recruits.
For the kids who visited last week, the recruiting process since March of their sophomore years of high school was experienced almost exclusively on FaceTime or Zoom. No visits, no on-campus experiences, no in-person interactions. And what’s more, they all watched the class ahead of them go through the entire recruiting process without any official visits, and they probably heard the recruits in that class talk about how much they missed out on.
And that’s the mindset these 2022 recruits had when they came into their first official visits. Every recruit who visited Pitt last week, other than defensive tackle commit Sean FitzSimmons, had additional visits planned, and while it’s not unheard-of for recruits to cancel visits and commit, it seemed really, really unlikely that these guys who hadn’t had a proper recruiting visit in 15 months – or, in some cases, never – would pop on the first trip to a college.
It just wasn’t going to happen. And I think you saw that around the country: there wasn’t nearly the volume of commitments that you typically see on an official visit weekend in June. Just looking around the ACC, only a handful of schools have gotten any commitments this month, and by my count, only two recruits – one for N.C. State and one for Virginia – committed during an official visit last weekend.
To me, that’s indicative of the state of things. Most kids weren’t going to jump on that first visit, not when it’s been so long since they could take any visits. As time goes on, though, we’ll see the commitments start to come.
Now the real work begins
I don’t want to say it’s easy to put together an amazing official visit weekend.
That’s selling the efforts of Pitt’s recruiting staff way short, because those folks work like crazy to make sure that every minute of the visit is as good as it can be. That’s a big part of the reason why Pat Narduzzi’s official visit weekends have been such a success, dating back to his first big one in December 2015.
But putting together a great weekend is only half the battle. Maybe less. What happens after the visit – especially this year – that’s where the real work begins for the Pitt coaches.
Like I mentioned, all of the recruits who visited last weekend, save for the one who is already committed, have more official visits set up. They all had a great time at Pitt and they were all blown away by what the Panthers have to offer, but that’s what official visits are supposed to do: they’re supposed to be awesome.
That’s what other schools are shooting for when they host those recruits in the coming weeks. So while Marcus Peterson told us that Pitt is his “top school” and there is an “80% or 90% chance” he’ll eventually commit to the Panthers, you can bet his trip to UCF this weekend is going to be pretty outstanding.
And yes, Dominique McKenzie said that his experience at Pitt will be “hard to top for any visit,” but Arizona is going to work pretty hard to do just that.
So what Narduzzi and the rest of the Pitt coaches need to do is make sure that Peterson and McKenzie and the rest of the recruits who visited last weekend never forget just how good their Pitt official visits were. Peterson’s going to have a blast at UCF. McKenzie is going to have a great visit to Arizona. Travious Lathan (“It’s the best I’ve ever seen,” he said about Pitt) is going to have as good of a time as you can have in Morgantown. Tyreese Fearbry (“I loved everything about it,” he said after his Pitt visit) is going to be impressed at Kentucky.
The list goes on and on. And that’s just what those guys have scheduled this week. Almost all of them have more visits planned for the rest of the month, so every week – every day – Narduzzi and his staff have to be on the phone reminding those recruits how much they enjoyed their time at Pitt. Don’t let those memories fade; keep them fresh so that when the recruits sit down and start really evaluating their options, they still have the mindset they had when they left campus.
If you aren’t diligent about it, then the more recent visits, the fresher memories, are going to start to dominate, and that’s how a recruit slips away.
So Narduzzi and company have to grind. They have to work even harder now than they did before the visit, because they’re going to be facing some stiff competition. If they land commitments from recruits who visited last week – and I believe they will – it will happen because the recruit sat down and said, “You know what? Even after a few other visits, nothing was better than Pitt.”
And it’s the staff’s job to make sure that’s how the recruits are thinking.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
What would make it a successful weekend?
Look, June is still June. You can’t change that.
Even last year, in the midst of the pandemic that upended recruiting, Pitt still landed June commitments because that’s what happens in June:
Recruits commit.
So while Pitt’s first official visit weekend of 2021 didn’t produce any immediate results, I still fully expect most, if not all, of those recruits to be committed by the end of the month. And I think a fair number of them will be committed to Pitt.
The question is: Who?
The first name is Tyreese Fearbry. He’s a four-star defensive end at Perry, and after we saw Pitt clean up on local defensive linemen in the last class, the expectation is that the Panthers will get Fearbry to follow suit.
Then there’s Ryland Gandy, a three-star cornerback prospect from Buford (Ga.). He came out of his visit very impressed with Pitt – “It’s going to have to be perfect on these other visits, because Pitt set the bar really high for the other schools to meet,” he said – and he looks like a good fit for the Panthers’ defense.
Travious Lathan, from Gulliver Prep in Miami, would be a really good addition to Pitt’s defense at outside linebacker.
And then there were two offensive linemen and two receivers on the visit. The linemen were Leyton Nelson and Brian Parker; the receivers were Marcus Peterson and Dominique McKenzie.
I think if Pitt can get Fearbry, Gandy and Lathan along with one of the linemen and one of the receivers, that would be quite a haul. Maybe even if they only got four of those five, it would be a successful weekend.
If the Panthers followed that by landing a couple of this week’s official visitors – four-star tight end Mason Taylor would be a good one, of course, and I think receiver Addison Copeland and running back Jordaan Bailey would also be really strong additions – then things are really going to get interesting.
I do think that as the weeks go along in June, the likelihood of getting official visit commitments increases. Maybe the recruits weren’t too anxious to jump on their first visit, but with every visit they take, they’ll get closer to being ready. So I would say the chances of Pitt getting a commitment this weekend are probably higher than they were last week, and they’ll be higher in two weeks than they are this week.
We’ll see what happens on the upcoming visits, but getting a few of those guys from the first weekend would be pretty big – and possibly set the table for a really strong June.
What do we read into this?
This tweet drew some interest this week, and while we’ve touched on the underlying premise here before, it’s pretty notable to see it presented like this:
Not bad, Pitt.
As long as we all more or less agree that low transfer numbers are a positive – I know: there’s always somebody who can find the dark cloud in any news, no matter how positive it appears to be – then that graphic reflects pretty well on Pat Narduzzi’s program.
And I think the point is made even more when we look at who exactly are those five scholarship players in the portal:
OL Carson Van Lynn
OL Liam Dick
WR Michael Smith
WR Will Gipson
RB Malik Newton
First things first: there aren’t any starters in there. Other than Van Lynn, there isn’t anybody who has seen significant playing time in their careers at Pitt. That’s not meant to be disparaging to those players; rather, it’s an observation that I think is relevant when we do see starters and contributors transferring at other schools.
That’s not the case at Pitt. Van Lynn played a good amount over the last three seasons; most of his 200 offensive snaps in 2018 and about half of his 200 snaps in 2019 came as an extra blocker lined up at tight end, but he was hoping to compete for a starting job at tackle this season.
Otherwise, the transfers didn’t play much. Smith lined up for 27 snaps on offense in 2018 and 2019, while Dick and Gipson never saw the field and Newton was an early-enrolling freshman who arrived on campus in January.
On top of that, Newton was medically disqualified when he got to Pitt and Smith was on a medical exemption scholarship in 2020, so neither was going to play for the Panthers regardless.
I don’t mean to disparage these guys; I like all five of these players and I think they have some potential to contribute at their next destinations (so far, Van Lynn has committed to Duke and Dick committed to Texas State). But overall, you’re looking at a really low amount of attrition – among the lowest in the country, and it gets even lower if you don’t count the guys who were out for medical reasons.
So what do we make of this? Why the low number of transfers for Pitt?
I really think it’s about culture. Say what you want about Pat Narduzzi and his staff, but I think they have, for the most part, been honest with the players. I can’t imagine there are many guys on Pitt’s roster who either don’t know where they stand or couldn’t get a prompt answer to that question if they wanted one. They know what’s what, and they know what they need to do if they want to move up on the depth chart.
I get the impression – and have for a few years – that Narduzzi and company try to be very upfront with the players. You see it in the recruiting interviews: how many times have we heard a recruit say that the thing that stands out about Narduzzi is his honesty? And I don’t think that’s just recruiting fluff; a lot of times, the recruits have gotten that impression from talking to guys on the current roster.
Granted, you’re always going to have some disgruntled players. With a roster of more than 100 young men between the ages of 18 and 21, somebody’s not going to be happy. That’s inevitable. But on the whole, I think Narduzzi and the staff have done a good job of being honest with the players, and if you do that, you should be able to keep guys satisfied. I think that has a lot to do with the low number of transfers.
ONE PREDICTION
What the lineup will look like
Jim handled the 3-2-1 Column last week so I haven’t had a chance to comment on Pitt adding Stony Brook transfer Mouhamadou Gueye.
I think the appeal for Jeff Capel is obvious: Gueye, the 2021 America East Conference Defensive Player of the Year, brings length and shot-blocking to the front court, which Pitt needs rather desperately.
Really, the last two additions – Gueye and JUCO transfer Chris Payton – bring those elements, and I don’t think that should be overlooked. It’s been quite some time since the Panthers had a real presence around the rim, somebody who could make it less appealing for opposing guards to drive to the basket.
Sure, Terrell Brown averaged 2.9 blocks per 40 minutes last season, but he was only playing 11 minutes per game. With Gueye and Payton on the roster, Pitt should be able to get a legit shot-blocker on the court at almost all times.
Now Pitt has 12 scholarship players on the roster, which is probably more than enough. I won’t rule out Capel and company adding another piece to the puzzle, but I think the lineup is mostly set. So what should we expect the rotation to look like?
Here’s my prediction/best guess:
I think the starting five will be Femi Odukale, Nike Sibande, Will Jeffress, Daniel Oladapo and John Hugley. I would say Hugley is probably my biggest question mark in there; I could see Gueye starting ahead of him, particularly early in the season. But both of those centers are going to play a lot, I think.
Then you’ve got Jamarius Burton and Ithiel Horton coming off the bench in the back court, with the potential to either replace Odukale and/or Sibande or work next to those guys with Sibande shifting to the 3. My guess – on June 11 – is we’ll see Sibande at the 3 more than we’ll see freshman Nate Santos on the court, but that will depend on how ready Santos is when the season starts.
The front court has options, too. Payton could play the 4 or the 5, giving Capel some versatility in the lineup to move guys around as needed. So Oladapo and Hugley might start, but Payton and Gueye could come off the bench and create a few different lineups and looks.
That’s how I think the roster will play out. As for how good that roster will be…well, I’m not ready to make that prediction just yet.