Here are Max Browne’s USC stats again, followed by Savage, Peterman and Stull’s also. Take a look at their years as a regular player at Pitt. For comparison in NP’s case that would be 2015 and Bill Stull’s 2009.
POV Sunday Podcast; July 9th, 2017
Tag: Alumni
POV: Sunday Podcast; July 2nd, 2017
(Sorry about the audio – I forgot to use my professional microphone so the audio is recorded through my laptop’s mic…)
Hello all, enjoy the above Podcast and here is some supporting text to mull over while you listen:
Recruiting vs Attracting
USC coach Clay Helton said Wednesday he had not been contacted by any coaches interested in Browne, but would do whatever he could to help him during the process.
Browne graduated from USC prior to this season and is two semesters short of an MBA. He said he plans to finish that program eventually.
Recruit Flipping – Here is an interesting article by Brian Batko of the P-G regarding recruits changing their minds after verbally committing to one school – note that in the class of 2017 we had six players who committed elsewhere sign LOIs with us:
The marquee college program in this town won its share of other schools’ losses. Of Pitt’s 22 committed or already-enrolled players in the 2017 recruiting class entering signing day, eight were originally pledged to another school, including three of its most highly regarded.
Two of those eight picked the Panthers in mid-December, then arrived on campus less than a month later. Defensive end Deslin Alexandre was a true “flip,” announcing that he was decommitting from North Carolina State and committing to Pitt at the same time. It wasn’t something he took lightly but felt it was better late than never to get it right.
Pitt placed 10 players on Athlon Magazine’s All-ACC four (!) deep listing.
Here is the article:
PITTSBURGH—The Pitt football team received 10 selections to the recently released Athlon Sports’ 2017 All-ACC Team as the widely recognized college sports magazine published its predictions for the first team through fourth team performers in the ACC this upcoming season.
Returning consensus All-American Quadree Henderson led the way with three total selections. After Henderson joined Tony Dorsett in 2016 as the only players in Pitt football history to top 2,000 all-purpose yards in a season, Athlon touted the junior wide receiver as a preseason first team kick returner, second team offensive all-purpose player and second team punt returner for 2017.
After Pitt had its most potent offense in school history in 2016, Athlon expects the Panthers to be talented and explosive again on the offensive side of the ball, naming six Panthers to its preseason All-ACC Team for 2017.
Continue reading “POV: Sunday Podcast; July 2nd, 2017”
2017’s DEs; Upgrade, Downgrade or Draw
This is the fifth of a longer POV series looking at the individual positions which need to be re-filled in 2017 and whether we will meet the PRODUCTION we had in those positions. We will not factor in true freshman at this point.
We have been blessed as a team to have had Ejuan Price at the defensive end position on our defense these last six years… that’s not a typo as two of those years were injury redshirts seasons. His constant and stalwart play masked some other problems we had on defense last season; mainly pressure on the QB from his fellow defenders.
Wait! you may say we had a ton of sacks and we sure did with 43 which was good for 6th nationally. But what is hidden there is that translates to only 8% of the times 592 times the opposing QBs dropped back to pass. As we know those same QBs ripped us apart on the other 92% of those pass plays.
So – as we know and are reminded all the time, stats can be deceiving. Here we see 43 sacks and think that is fantastic and it pretty much is, but is was the lack of constant pressure from the other DE position and the LBs that fell by the wayside… and helped to account for those 331 yards passing per game against us.
But that is the heart and soul of a Narduzzi defense. Stop the run and put strong pressure on the quarterback.
That worked out pretty well in 2015; 2016 was a completely different story however as the other team’s passer had more than enough time to throw those intermediate and deep route completions for a substantial 12.4 ypc rate and 28 TDs. You may think 12.4 ypc given up isn’t so bad but let’s remember that it happened 350 times to our defense.
That is a recap of what happened. Here are who helped it to come about from the DE position. First, as mentioned, we had Price who was just plain fantastic from that spot. 13 sacks for losses of 92 yards and 23 tackles for loss (TFL) for a total 123 yards… ‘Nuff said. He was great for us.
Historical Pitt 4* & 5* Recruits’ Careers
We have talked many times about the need for highly rated recruits to build a high-quality nucleus for a successful team. There is no doubt that the longer a HC stays at a school, especially during his first contract, he gets better recruiting opportunities. We saw that with Dave Wannstedt when his recruiting took off after the 13-9 win in Morgantown during the 2007 season.
But recruiting young players isn’t enough and is truly just the beginning. With all the standards, rules and regulations, both internal of the university and external of the NCAA and ACC, it makes a college career into a minefield for a lot of student/athletes. Some thrive at Pitt to become the star players they were projected to be and some fall by the wayside due to either inattention to responsibilities, bad actions, injuries or by just plain being recruited over so they feel they must look for playing time elsewhere.
Just to show how this player attrition works let’s look at who of the 4* and 5* blue-chip players Pitt has landed over the years either left on their own accord or were forced out before their eligibility expired (those who departed the program are in bold):
Continue reading “Historical Pitt 4* & 5* Recruits’ Careers”
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