Rutgers graduate transfer tight end Nakia Griffin-Stewart committed to Pitt on Saturday, becoming the 21st player that will join the Panthers in advance of the 2019 season.
Griffin-Stewart spent the last four seasons with the Scarlet Knights, playing three, and will have one season of eligibility remaining.
He made five starts while playing in all 24 games for Rutgers over the last two seasons and made 13 catches for 97 yards and a touchdown.
The 6-foot-5, 250 pound tight end is a native of Tenafly, New Jersey, which is along the Hudson River north of New York.
Coming out of Tenafly High School, Griffin-Stewart was considered a consensus three-star prospect and the No. 44 tight end in the country. He chose Rutgers over offers from Louisville and UConn.
He visited Pitt in early February and told PSN he “enjoyed it from the minute I touched down to the minute I left.”
“I definitely left with a very good impression of the University of Pittsburgh with this trip,” he said.
Courtesy of Nakia Griffin-Stewart
Griffin-Stewart said that he wanted his mother to be able to make a visit to Pittsburgh before he committed, as he took his first visit to campus with his stepfather.
Pitt has added a graduate transfer at tight end in each of the last two seasons. Pitt added Arkansas transfer Will Gragg before the 2018 season and Rutgers transfer Matt Flanagan before the 2017 season.
Gragg still has one season of eligibility remaining, and as things stand now, he and Griffin-Stewart appear to be the favorites for most of the playing time at tight end, along with 2018 co-starter Grant Carrigan. It’s not clear if Carson Van Lynn, who moved from tackle to tight end during the season in 2018, will stay there or return to the line. Pitt also has one freshman tight end in the class, New Jersey’s Jason Collier.