Pitt FB Recruiting
Pitt Offers California 4-Star TE Ethan Rae
Monday, the Pitt football program continued its recruiting in the state of California by offering one of the top junior tight ends in the country.
Ethan Rae (6-foot-5, 238 pounds) is from Lutheran High School in Orange, California and is rated by Rivals.com as a 4-star prospect. Rivals lists Rae as the fourth-best junior tight end and one of the Top 125 overall players in the country.
This elite talent currently holds 15 offers including ones from Arizona State, California, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Mississippi, Notre Dame, Oregon, Texas A&M, UCLA and USC.
Rae is the sixth highly rated prospect from California that Pitt has offered , joining TE Jude Wolfe, LB De’Gabriel Floyd, LB Spencer Lytle CB Chris Steele and athlete Trent McDuffie.
Pittsburgh Sports Now spoke with Rae about the offer and he started by telling an interesting story about when he first came in contact with the Pitt staff.
“Actually, when I was a freshman, (tight ends coach Tim) Salem was the first coach to ever come by to see me and express interest,” Rae said. “After that, we rarely texted because of the no-contact rule. Then this past year, he started to contact me again and let me know that he’d be stopping by at some point. Today, we contacted each other and he let me know that I had the offer from Pitt
“Once he was permitted to contact me again, Coach Salem definitely did a good job of keeping in contact with me and letting me know that him and Pitt were very much interested in me. Over the last couple of years, it’s been a good process of getting to really know him.”
Being out on the West Coast, Rae doesn’t get much if any Pitt news but he had a popular answer to the thing he knows most about the Panthers program.
“Them playing in the ACC and the big wins that they’ve had over the last two years, that’s a big deal to me,” he said. “Them beating Miami and Clemson, that’s the big thing I know about Pitt.”
Rae is obviously a national recruit and his recruiting is going to be intense. He’s ready for the attention and has he seen enough from Pitt to have some long-term interest in the program.
“I’m definitely excited for this recruiting process to begin now that the 2018 Class has signed,” he said. “A lot of coaches have let me know that they’re going to start focusing on me and recruiting me so that’s going to be really exciting. Right now, everyone has a chance and I’m honestly open to every school. I’m really not going to think about leaders or anything like that until the end of summer or something like that.
“I’m definitely intrigued by Pitt based on the ACC conference, their big upset wins and the fact that they play hard-nosed football. I’m definitely open to Pitt.”
