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Pitt FB Recruiting

Could Utah TE Trey Andersen’s Long Journey Lead Him to Pitt?

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We’ve been reporting and showing examples of how the Pitt football program is attempting to extend their recruiting base by spending a lot of time in states like Georgia, Virginia, Texas and Michigan.

With their first 17 commitments in their Class of 2021, the Panthers have gone into eight different states in order to land a recruit. Now they’re looking to add another one to their footprint after extending an offer to a player from Utah.

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Thursday night, Pitt extended an offer to 2021 3-star tight end Trey Andersen (6’6″, 250) from Lehi, Utah. Pittsburgh Sports Now talked to Trey’s father and found out the interesting story behind this player.

Jason Andersen, Trey’s father, is a former college football assistant, who also played seven years in the NFL with New England, Miami, Kansas City and Cleveland.

That background in football, specifically in coaching, directly led to Pitt finding out and extending an offer to his son.

Coming out of Lehi High School in Utah, Andersen was a 3-star recruit in the Class and 2019 and made a verbal commitment to play for BYU. However, Andersen never signed with BYU and decided instead to serve a church mission with the Church of Latter-Day Saints.

Seven days after graduating high school, Anderson started his church mission in Fresno, California, where he’s currently still serving. Normally it’s a two year mission but amid the coronavirus shutdown, Andersen will be coming home early in November and will immediately start the recruiting process again. In fact, Jason Andersen tells PSN that Trey plans on enrolling early to college and will officially sign somewhere during the December Signing Period.

With that being the background, how did Tim Salem and Pat Narduzzi find out about Andersen?

As previously mentioned, Jason Andersen was a collegiate offensive line coach for six years but moved to a high school once his sons started playing high school football.

Jason Andersen is looking to get back into college coaching and recently attending the National Coaches Convention in Nashville in January in order to begin the process of networking himself and develop some contacts. At the convention, Andersen was talking with a good friend of his, former Ohio State quarterback Joe Germaine. While walking over to talk with him, Germaine was speaking with Tim Salem, his former quarterbacks coach at Ohio State. Germaine introduced the two sides and that’s when Jason Andersen brought up his son, Trey, and told Salem of his situation. Salem took down his name, exchanged numbers and the two sides have remained in contact since then.

The story and coincidence doesn’t end there for the Andersen family and Pitt.

A few weeks after the National Coaches Convention in Nashville, Jason Andersen attended a Nike coaches clinic in Las Vegas. It just so happens that Pat Narduzzi was one of the speakers. During that clinic, Jason Andersen had a chance to talk with Narduzzi about his son.

Because of those interactions and mainly because of his ability on the field, Pitt informed Trey Andersen last night of his offer to play at Pitt. Along with this offer, Andersen also recently received one from California and is continuing to get recruited by BYU, Texas Tech and Boise State.

Andersen is a two-way tight end that’s a threat in the passing game and considering his fathers background in playing and coaching the offensive line, definitely knows how to block at the line.

Jason Andersen tells PSN that depending on what’s allowed, Trey plans on visiting Pitt at the beginning of November once his mission ends.

Pitt’s quest to land a high school is well chronicled. Will this chance meeting between the Pitt staff and Andersen family result in the Panthers landing the tight end they’ve been searching for?

Sandy Schall, Coldwell Banker
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Clark Martineau
3 years ago

Serves up some nice pancakes.
 

Mr. Thisthatso4thandtheother
Mr. Thisthatso4thandtheother
3 years ago

This kid is going to BYU. I mean it’s nice that they haven’t given up on recruiting a TE after repeated failures but this is really the longest of long shots.

Rob
Rob
3 years ago

Exactly. A cursory look at his Twitter shows that his dad is a BYU alum. Plus he already committed there and was on the verge of signing. Pitt is desperate and it shows.

J D
J D
3 years ago

Salem will blow it like always.

Rob
Rob
3 years ago
Reply to  J D

Tell the kid how great he’ll be blocking in their run oriented offense. That’ll seal the deal!

Sec. 122
Sec. 122
3 years ago

At this point Tim Salem needs to turn into Nick Nolte’s character from “Blue Chips” and sell his soul to get a good recruit.

Clark Martineau
Clark Martineau
3 years ago

Please spell his last name right: Andersen.

 
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