Pitt FB Recruiting
4-Star Defensive End Mason Robinson Breaks Down Pitt Visit
Pitt hosted a handful of four-star recruits on Saturday, one of which was defensive end Mason Robinson.
The elite pass rushing specialist from Owings Mills, Maryland is being pursued and offered by some of the top programs in the country, such as Georgia, Miami (FL), Michigan, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn State, Tennessee, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. Unlike most of the players that visited yesterday, this wasn’t Robinson’s first trip to Pitt. Over the summer, he attended and worked out at a prospect camp hosted by the Pitt program.
Robinson and his family arrived in Pittsburgh Friday night and Pittsburgh Sports Now spoke with him on Sunday morning before he made his way back to Maryland.
Considering Pitt wasn’t entirely new to him, I asked Robinson if he came this time with a goal of learning about through observing or finding out about from the coaches?
“This time I wanted to really see the football part of everything with Pitt,” said Robinson. “I was able to do that because I watched one of their practices, scrimmages, I got to be in one of their meetings. I thought everything was done very well. Everything was very timely, run on a specific schedule, which I thought was great. Everything was fast paced, and the coaches were all into it. Coach Narduzzi really gets into it, he’s a real character on the field. Coach (Partridge) does a really good job with the defensive line and when they go live, it’s crazy, it gets poppin out there.
“Getting to watch that, really, all it does is motivates me to work harder. I know that, yeah, they’re good, but I also know that if I continue to put in the work that I could be in that position one day and possibly be better than that. I don’t want or mean to boast myself up but I believe that I have the potential to one day be up there with some of the best. However, coming here this weekend showed me that I still need to put in some work.”
Robinson was able to talk with a trio of Pitt coaches and not surprisingly, he got the vibe from them how much they’d love for him to join their program and become one of Pitt’s next great defensive lineman.
“I talked with Coach Powell, Coach Patridge and some with Coach Narduzzi,” said Robinson. “Coach Powell is an African-American coach so we were really able to bond. He’s very down to earth and he’s really cool. He’s called me a lot and I’ve called him a lot so we’ve developed a really good bond. Coach (Partridge) is really cool too and I enjoy talking with him too. I didn’t ask a lot of questions. I was mainly here to observe things, see how things are run, see how they practice and how they coach. That part is really important to me.
“I was able to stay with one of their freshmen, Sam Okunlola. It was me and another player Desmond Umeozula (2023 four-star defensive end). It was us three hanging out after the practice. He took us back to his dorm and we hung out all night. It was fun, it was crazy. I got to really meet some of the boys and the players were really cool and really down to earth. It was nice to see members of a great team that had great chemistry off the field. I felt like they were trying to make sure I had a good time and I really appreciate that. I want to give a shoutout to Sam because he did a lot for me last night. I appreciated that from him.”
Robinson doesn’t have any other visits planned for this month but in April, he’ll be making a visit to Penn State and South Carolina.
Pitt will lose talented defensive ends John Morgan, Deslin Alexandre and Habakkuk Baldonado following the 2022 season and would love to replace them with a talent such as Robinson.
