Pat Narduzzi is fast filling up the 2021 recruiting class.

A few hours ago Pittsburgh Sports Now’s Alan Saunders astutely pointed this out.

A short while later Central Valley’s Stephon Hall Committed.

Hall is a high-two star on Rivals (5.4), and had 18 total offers, although only five of them were Power Five.  If he had just sent them a picture they might have bumped him up to 5.5 and given him that extra star.  Not that it matters.

Stephon Hall

At the end of the day, Hall has prototypical height for the safety position at 6’2″, but is a little bit lean at 165.  If you look at his video, he’s good in run support but seems to lack the burst of a Paris Ford or even a Damar Hamlin.  (Although Ford’s closing speed elite and not many will match it).  With that being said, you’d have to think there is room on Hall’s 6’2″ frame to add about 30 lbs of muscle, and you’d like 20 of those to go to his legs.  That will definitely help.  Of course all that is predicated on how dedicated he is to his craft…

The good news is that based on his offer sheet, Hall appears to be a high character guy Offers from all three service academies are all you need to see to tell you that.  Which means that he’s probably more likely to put in the work and develop himself as a player.

P5 Offer List (5)

  • Boston College – Former Pitt assistant now BC head coach Jeff Hafley trying to get in on the WPIAL action.
  • Syracuse – Heyyyy Pitt offered him!
  • Wake Forest – Dave Clawson showing his MAC roots here.
  • West Virginia – Probably played the semi-hometown hero card here.  Clearly it did not work.
  • Pitt – Hail to.

Non P5 Offer List (13)

  • Air Force – Off we go into the wild blue yonder.
  • Akron – MAC 1
  • Army – On, Brave Old Army Team
  • Ball State – MAC 2
  • Bowling Green – MAC 3
  • Buffalo – MAC 4
  • Central Michigan – MAC 5
  • Eastern Michigan – MAC 6
  • Kent State – MAC 7
  • Navy – Anchors Away
  • Old Dominion – They put up 17 against Virginia Tech last year, which is more than you can say for Pitt.
  • Toledo – MAC 8
  • William and Mary – I’m just Glad this didn’t say Elon

Welcome to Pitt Stephon Hall.  May you eat your fill of the training table, and spend most of your free time in the weight room, doing agility drills and studying film so that you can prove the doubters wrong.

Hail to Pitt

Michaelangelo Monteleone

Michaelangelo holds a degree in Travel Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. He was a former staff writer for InPittsburgh Newsweekly, and currently resides near Atlanta, Georgia. He has been a Pitt fan since 1997 after he witnessed Pitt upset #22 Miami on Thursday night at Pitt Stadium.

53 thoughts on “Narduzzi lands 15th 2021 Commit”

  1. Hall from Central Valley.. hmmm isn’t that where the infamous Robert Foster was from? Solid pick-up with a huge upside.

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  2. and yet still another Pat Signal …. I hear a 4.9 1-star offered by Geneva, Grove City, La Roche and Butler County Community College

    But seriously, there is another Pat Signal just posted

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Seems to have decent speed to me. Breaks to the ball with good quickness. Aggressive tackler.

    I can see why Coach Duzz likes this kid.

    Go Pitt.

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  8. Seriously Tex, I think a good bowel movement would get you to reach for the good stuff? 🙂

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    1. He would be a three finger bourbon and I’d go back for seconds and thirds and fourths. So would that be an entire bottle?

      Tex

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  9. Stephon Hall seems like a reach if Pitt is recruiting 38-40 players to fill 8-9 remaining spots. Why the hurry to grab this player? Must be that they are desperate to recruit more depth at safety.

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    1. It all depends on their evaluation one where he falls on their board, likelihood of landing other defensive backs, desire to build relationship with the Central Valley coaching staff even

      Liked by 1 person

  10. Hoops note: Oklahoma State’s ban from the 2020-21 tourney means its best recruit could be headed to North Carolina instead. Rumor is it would push RJ Davis out of Carolina’s class and he would land at Pitt.

    Davis is the point guard Capel recruited like hell.

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  11. 2nd Pat signal of the night. Then this…holds a Pitt offer. 5.5 ath out of GA

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  12. Talk about making a good recruiting class great! If Capel could land RJ Davis there would be dancing in the streets!

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  13. Middle of the road recruits mean middle of the road performance. Does anyone think narduzzis staff is very good at developing players and maximizing their potential? Talent wins in the end. This team isn’t talented enough. Coaching can only do so much. Avg star rating is middle of the pack in the Coastal. Pitt can and should do better.

    Tex

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    1. Narduzzi has averaged 7 wins. He plays in the weakest P5 division with Cuse as the crossover. He will never win more than 9 games. I’ll give up bourbon if that ever happened. I have 5 potential replacements but heather ignores me. Pitt is fine with crap bowls as long as the program is clean and the players make good grades. To me, that’s Ivey league. Pitt is no Harvard. Heck it ties with Florida State these days. Going through life as middling is not something I want to be a part of. It’s easy to be average. It takes some hard work and brains to excel. I’m afraid Pitt will never learn that lesson.

      Tex
      Pitt fans matter

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  15. Just a thought – are these players committing because they are worried without FB this fall and camps this summer that they are borderline and must commit or lose out to P5 offer (dear lord am I agreeing with Tex- maybe as to the georgia guy . Tex is typical of blowhards from down there Texas is 500 times better than any other state. I’ll give you NY and California. So glad tex you allow us on your web page. 🙂 Bourbon and branch JR? 🙂

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  16. Truth is that – with the exception of the Clemson, Miami, and FSU recruits – you could shuffle and re-deal all the DBs recruited by the rest of the ACC teams, and no one would ever know the difference…

    And the same applies for every other position.

    Just my humble opinion…

    Go Pitt.

    Liked by 3 people

  17. I agree with rkb that this recruiting period is different. Many recruits are committing to schools without visiting this year. And I think both the schools like Pitt which have numerous openings this year as well as many recruits who are afraid they may not get the chance to display their talents, whether in camps or the playing field, think committing early is the way to go.

    I just read an article in 247 that thinks there will be a lot of decommitments later on this year due to this phenomenon, and the author cites schools like Miami and FSU will be hit the most because, right now, many kids are choosing local schools. Of course, being that Hall is only the 2nd P5 WPIALer to commit so far (the other being Nahki Johnson of West Mifflin, also to Pitt), it remains to be seen how this will work out.

    Thus far, there has only been 2 Pitt commits from FL so far which may reflect the fact that Partridge and crew just haven’t been able to get out and meet people. There has been a nice infusion of VA recruits, but many of these guys have actually taken personal trips to Pittsburgh.

    As for me, I’m just thankful that I got my first round of golf in yesterday (still bad as ever) and the PGA tour resumes next week.

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  18. Love the last two DB recruits. Super aggressive and physical. Getting kids from Georgia is great.

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  20. There is something to be said for repairing the Beaver Valley Pipeline. It has been very good to Pitt over the years. It will also be interesting to see how many of these kids flip after they have great senior seasons or get to take real visits.

    Personal records set yesterday at Pheasant Ridge, three birdies in a row on the front and two more on the back. Never had three in a row or 5 total.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. I may have putted for 3 birdies in a row …. maybe not.

      Let me guess — those were on Holes 5, 6 and 7 (or maybe 1, 2 and 3)

      Liked by 1 person

      1. You are amazing, absolutely correct. I started with four bogies then the three birds.
        The others were 16 and 18.

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        1. well I knew #7 was the birdie hole on the front … heck, even I have parred it a couple times. Then since the 5th was also a par 5, I thought the logical guess was 5, 6 and 7.

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  22. With all these Georgia kids it is too bad Pitt cannot add Georgia State to the schedule and play a 2 for 1. Two at Georgia State in the old Braves stadium.

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      1. Is the water boy 6’5″ 220lbs and tackles like a man against high-end competition? If so, I say sign the water-boy up.

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        1. The water boy is very fast at delivering necessary fluids and is of high character, great attitude, team leader, and gets good grades. Really no different than the typical Pitt recruit.

          🤠

          Liked by 1 person

          1. OK great but how does he tackle when someone gets to close to the water jug? << That’s his domain assuming he is a he?

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  25. BTW… The “French Car Company” NOT withstanding… Khalil Anderson looks to be Narduzzi’s BEST Recruit in the Secondary since George Hill.

    Of course, we all know Hill was destined to make his mark at Runningback.

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  26. Even the fan boy isn’t impressed

    Tex

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  28. Some players took exception to being called thugs by Narduzzi. I can understand the sensitivity behind this word. Some complained about a strict or conservative dress code. But personally, unless you don’t bathe and smell or have gang tattoos, I think anything goes. Kids need to express themselves. Remember these young adults are part of OUR family.

    Tex

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  29. If he called them gangster they would embrace it. Such BS.

    The term has no racial meaning. Queue up the PC Media to run with this.

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  30. Nate – been saying for years we should add Georgia State, FIU, FAU, USF to the schedule every year to get multiple visits for these kids back closer to home and to get exposure for your recruiting base of Florida and Georgia. This is where an AD with decent knowledge gets the totality of the circumstances and works in unison with her coaches. We will do nothing for recruiting by scheduling Iowa, Tennessee and West Virgina. With Miami on the schedule every year, the florida kids know they will either be on tv back home or back home when they play.

    If I was AD for a week, that is the first thing I would do. Schedule correctly to support your team.

    Recruiting – The recent recruits are fine. Not great, just fine. This is why there is a ceiling on wins. We need some high 3 stars and four stars to finish out the class. Our class is barely stronger than Rutgers. The big teams (alabammy, oklahoma, Ta&M, fl St, Auburn, wvu, and a plethora of others will soon pass the mighty narduzzi recruiting machine. They all have fewer recruits with a large differential in average ranking.

    The wvu high school coach is slowly improving his recruiting over the flamboyant Holgy.

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