The WPIAL’s Class of 2024 is filled with talent and players such as Belle Vernon’s Quinton Martin, Aliquippa’s Cameron Lindsey and Central Catholic’s Anthony Speca have received most of the headlines.
One player that’s flown under the radar despite having a handful of Power Five offers is Pine-Richland lineman Ryan Cory.
The 6-foot-4, 290-pound offensive guard has quietly earned offers from programs such as Cincinnati, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisville, Maryland, Oregon, Toledo, Miami (Ohio) and UConn. Considering the program he plays for and that he’s just entering his junior season, that list of offers will no doubt grow over the next couple of seasons.
This past weekend, Cory attempted to display his talent in front of the hometown team, as he participated in the Pitt Panther prospects camp on the South Side.
Following the camp today, Pittsburgh Sports Now spoke with Cory about his performance and his under-the-radar recruiting profile.
“That’s just not really my personality trait as I’ve never been a person that boasted about things,” said Cory. “I feel that in a way you have to have a sense of cockiness, but it has to be the right amount and not too much. Talking about myself has never been my personality trait. It’s not me to talk about ‘I have this offer or that offer or that I can go play in this conference’. Some of my teammates have told me that maybe I need to change that a bit and get a little more in depth about it because of all the possible NIL stuff out there so it’s a little bit of a challenge to try and balance that.
“In terms of my recruiting, I’m perfectly happy with where I am and the teams that are recruiting me,” Cory said. “It’s always been my goal to go to college for free so that my parents don’t have to pay for me. If I don’t get another offer the rest of my high school career, I’d be perfectly okay with that.”
While he’d be ok with not receiving another offer, Cory also wouldn’t be upset if he receives more, particularly from Pitt. The Panther coaching staff is obviously aware of him and spent the majority of the day watching Cory’s performance on the field.
“I set things up to go to six camps this summer, I didn’t want to go to too many,” said Cory. “I didn’t have the chance to go to Pitt last year, so I wanted to make it a priority this year because it’s the hometown school and close to home. It was a really good camp and super well organized. A lot of Pine athletes were there too and we competed and it was good. I think I did pretty good in everything and could’ve been a little better in certain things, but overall I felt I had a pretty good camp.
“Before the camp started, Coach (Dave) Borbely came over and found me and we were talking, and he was around me all day. At the end of the day, he pulled me aside along with a couple of other linemen and told me that they don’t ever offer right away like that. They film all the reps so they’re going to go back and watch it and I’m supposed to give him a call this week.”
While he’d obviously love to receive an offer from Pitt, Cory wasn’t going to overreact about it one way or the other.
“I really don’t know if an offer will come,” Cory said. “I really don’t know how they really feel about me because they’ve been down to see me twice and it’s always just been us chatting and seeing whether or not I pass the visual test. I would love to get the Pitt offer because they’re local and they just won the ACC championship last year. It would mean a lot, but we’ll see what happens.”
