Pitt FB Recruiting
Pitt’s Biggest WPIAL Recruiting Wins in Recent History
Being able to land and keep top recruits from your area home is a goal of all college football programs.
During his tenure as Pitt head coach, Dave Wannstedt wanted to “build a brick wall” around the WPIAL for its top players. While that has become less of a emphasis because of the decrease in top level Power 5 level talent and the shift in Pitt’s recruiting map, Pat Narduzzi still has emphasized landing elite local talent.
The Panthers scored a big win last year when the areas top defensive player Westinghouse 4-star defensive end Dayon Hayes choose Pitt over offers from programs such as Penn State, Ohio State, Texas A&M and West Virginia.
That momentum has carried over to this year as two elite WPIAL players have joined Pitt’s Class of 2021: West Mifflin 4-star DE Nahki Johnson and Central Catholic 4-star defensive tackle Elliot Donald. Johnson committed to Narduzzi back in June of 2019 but has continued to get recruited by programs like Penn State and recently picked up an offer from the defending national champion LSU Tigers. In terms of Donald, he ended up choosing his hometown school over James Franklin and Penn State.
The bottom line is that these are major recruiting wins for Narduzzi and his staff in order to land three national recruits, who happen to be from Western Pennsylvania.
How big was landing Donald and where does it rank in terms of WPIAL recruiting battles for Pitt in recent memory? We went back over the last decade to remember some of Pitt’s recruiting battles and who they went up against to come out on top.
Damar Hamlin (Class of 2016): 4-star safety, #4 ranked player in Pennsylvania and #126 Nationally. Offers from programs such as Auburn, Clemson, Miami, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, WVU and Wisconsin.
Jordan Whitehead (Class of 2015: 4-star cornerback, #1 ranked player in Pennsylvania and #75 Nationally. Offers from Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Tennessee and WVU.
Alex Bookser (Class of 2014): 4-star offensive tackle, #4 ranked player in Pennsylvania and #249 Nationally. Offers from Alabama, Florida State, Georgia, Ohio State, Penn State, Tennessee, USC and WVU.
Tyler Boyd (Class of 2013): 4-star wide receiver, #6 ranked player in Pennsylvania and #103 Nationally. Offers from Michigan State, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Penn State, Tennessee, VA Tech, WVU and Wisconsin.
Dorian Johnson (Class of 2013): 5-star offensive tackle, #2 ranked player in Pennsylvania and #31 Nationally. Offers from Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Tennessee, VA Tech, WVU and Wisconsin.
Rushel Shell (Class of 2012): 4-star running back, #2 ranked player in Pennsylvania and #55 Nationally. Offers from Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Ohio State, Penn State, Tennessee, UCLA and WVU.
Where’s Paris Ford?
Shell was clearly way overrated.
For sure. I was wondering why he is included but not Ford. It’s hard to compare players from different positions but he and Johnson are probably then top two on the list, assuming Ford ‘s omission is an oversight, which is inexcusable.
The article is about recruiting wins, not how they ended up. Shell was a HUGE recruiting win and should absolutely be on this list along with Paris.
Since it’s been brought up a few times, I wanted to address why Paris Ford wasn’t mentioned in the article. This story was about recruiting battles for Pitt but like with Nahki Johnson, landing Ford wasn’t a battle and committed early. Johnson committed to Pitt on June 25th of 2019 and shutdown his recruitment. With Paris Ford, he committed on October 16th of 2015, which was before the players in the Class of 2016 officially signed. Ford was in the Class of 2017. I didn’t do a good enough job of making it clear in the story but this was… Read more »
Thanks for the explanation Mike. Ford did commit early and tried to lure some of that star studded WPIAL class but unfortunately wasn’t able to get anyone to join him. There were some nervous times toward the end when it looked like he was going to take some visits. It was a relief when his LOI rolled off the fax machine. BTW – how antiquated is that…a fax machine.
and then the article just ends poof