The Luniewski twins — Charlton and Mercer — made a visit to Pittsburgh, but only Mercer left with an offer. A month and a half later, after a visit from Dave Borbely, now Charlton has picked up an offer, too.
Charlton — a 6-foot-6, 290-pound interior offensive lineman from Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy in Cincinnati, Ohio — announced his offer to Pitt Thursday morning, thanking the coaching staff for a one-of-a-kind opportunity.
“So, we’ve been in contact with coach Borbs for a while, we’ve called him up a few times, we liked him the first time we met him, and we’ve always been pretty familiar with coach Narduzzi,” Charlton told PSN. “We got down there, loved the visit, loved everything and they said, ‘Hey, we’ll be up to your school in a few months,’ and after that, coach Borbs came up to our school yesterday, watched us move around and he said he just wanted to see how we move and he’d extend the offer to me. And thankfully at that point, we both had the opportunity to play football at the University of Pittsburgh.”
Charlton has now received offers from Akron, Appalachian State, Ball State, Connecticut, Kent State, Kentucky, Miami, Michigan State, Miami (Oh.), Temple, Toledo and Virginia — with interest from Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Charlton and Mercer market themselves as a package deal, so when an opportunity arises for the twins to be able to make the jump to the next level together, it’s something to take note of.
“That’s everything,” Charlton said. “It’s a game changer. I think we both offer more than anyone can imagine as a set of twins. We’ve been through everything together, we’ve conquered a lot of things in life together, and I think we function in a way kind of as a hive mind, bouncing ideas of each other, but also in a leadership role. I think we offer a lot in the leadership position with us being twins.”
Since Charlton and Mercer made it out to Pittsburgh at the end of March, their relationship with Borbely has continued to grow. All three hop on a call together every week. And Charlton has been able to see the kind of coach that he is.
“He focuses on the details,” Charlton said. “Every relationship he approaches, he approaches it in a business manner. If you’re recruiting someone there’s obviously business behind that, but he also looks just at the person’s character and he’s very invested in the little details.”
Borbely, to his credit, has seen the kind of fluid athlete that Charlton is in a 6-foot-6, 290-pound frame. Charlton and Mercer operate well in tandem, able to maul defensive linemen and linebackers with a combination of their speed and quickness and their strength.
247Sports and Rivals haven’t rated Charlton yet, but he does hold a three-star evaluation from On3 — as does Mercer on 247Sports and On3. And those ratings will likely only rise throughout the summer.
As of right now, the twins have an official visit scheduled for the final weekend in June, and they’re going to set up an official visit to Pitt earlier in June. Virginia, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Minnesota have also been recruiting the brothers hard lately.
The plan now is to take their official visits and spend the first two weeks of July deliberating on where they want to commit — very likely as a package deal. And Pitt is firmly in the mix.
“The facilities, that’s a one of kind opportunity, there’s nowhere else you can play alongside the professional sports team — the professional football team — in the area, and that’s huge for us,” Charlton said. “It’s definitely way up there for us now that we have the opportunity.”
“Totally, it could be pivotal for us,” Mercer told PSN in April. “They were very straight to the point and showed us what is important to us, the education, their campus and the resources for their athletes. It’s definitely a big consideration for us, especially if my twin would get an offer as well. Pitt was great, the vibe that I got from them was great. We actually knew some members of their strength and conditioning staff that we knew previously, so that was neat. It was huge to be able to see how they practice and left us with a very good early impression.”
