Former Aliquippa and West Virginia defensive back Kwantel Raines has a new football home.
Raines, who entered the NCAA transfer portal in late November, tells Pittsburgh Sports Now that he will be transferring to Temple and will have two years of athletic eligibility remaining after sitting out the upcoming 2020 season.
After redshirting his first season at West Virginia, the former 4-star recruit couldn’t fit in with the Mountaineers new scheme with Neal Brown and defensive coordinator Vic Koenning. Speculation is that the West Virginia staff wanted Raines to put on some weight and move from safety down to linebacker.
This past season, Raines played in only five games and collected nine tackles and one forced fumble.
After announcing his decision to transfer, Raines expressed to PSN an interest of possibly transferring to Pitt if they had an interest but that never materialized with Pat Narduzzi not having a need to add another linebacker, which is where they envisioned him playing in their defensive scheme.
Raines will be joining a program with a heavy influx of players from Pennsylvania. This past season, Temple had 38 players that were from Pennsylvania including four from Western PA (TE Tyler Sear/Neshannock, DE Layton Jordan/McKeesport, OL Griffin Sestili/North Allegheny and WR Ronnie Stevenson/Montour).
This is just another big time miss on Narduzzi’s part. They’re gonna shove Hallett down our throats for the next four years. This guy doesn’t know how to pick the right players.