Pitt FB Recruiting
2025 4-Star WPIAL LB Recruit Includes Pitt in Top Five
There’s certainly a lot of focus on both the transfer portal and the class of 2024 from the Pitt coaching staff right now, but one of the top recruits in the WPIAL in the class of 2025 has named the Panthers to his top five. And that’s big news.
Dayshaun Burnett, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound four-star linebacker from Imani Christian Academy in Pittsburgh, has narrowed down an impressive list of offers to just five schools: Kentucky, Penn State, Pitt, Rutgers and West Virginia.
Pitt, the fifth school to extend Burnett an offer, has been hot on him for a while now.
“I feel like the relationship is pretty good with those guys as well,” Burnett told Rivals. “A lot of enthusiasm when it comes to the staff, players, you can really tell that their guys are really close with the coaches. You can tell that the locker room environment is really good. Everyone’s close, it’s just like a brotherhood to them.
“I feel like I can relate to those guys pretty well, especially coach Cory Sanders and coach Ryan Manalac, those are the two guys that’ve really been in my ear the most talking to me about what Pitt’s all about.”
Blessed to announce my Official Top 5 colleges💯. Where’s home? @ImaniCAFootball @Chise89 @Evolve2tenths @210ths @RivalsFriedman @adamgorney @tyler_calvaruso @EdOBrienCFB @wpialsportsnews @PaFootballNews here’s where I talk about it👇🏾https://t.co/A7n3sJRnji pic.twitter.com/BSUI50K1AW
— Dayshaun Burnett ( LB/ATH ) (@dburnett_10) December 2, 2023
Burnett has been a frequent visitor since Sanders first extended an offer back on Aug. 7, 2022, and he’s attended the Backyard Brawl in 2022, a bowl practice in 2022 and made it out for Junior Day in January.
“Pitt has been in touch with me a lot and I’m down there a lot because it’s right down the street,” Burnett told PSN over the summer. “Me personally, I feel that I have a really good relationship with them, and I feel that the Pitt staff has a great relationship with their players.
“You can really tell that the coaching staff is all about their players and making sure everyone is ok and doing good. I have a good relationship with Coach Manalac, who’s a great guy, along with Coach Cory (Sanders).”
It’s no surprise that the Pitt coaching staff is so high on Burnett, who is already built like a collegiate athlete, and he backed it up on the field for Imani Christian. On the way to earning Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Fab 22 honors as a junior, he threw for a few hundred yards, ran for a few hundred more and provided physical play as a roving linebacker on defense.
247Sports rates Burnett as the 325th-ranked recruit in the class (29th-ranked linebacker and eighth-ranked recruit from Pennsylvania) while On3 rates him as the 320th-ranked recruit in the class (35th-ranked linebacker and 10th-ranked recruit from Pennsylvania).
Rivals holds him as the 14th-ranked outside linebacker and seventh-ranked recruit from Pennsylvania — awarded a 5.8 Rivals Rating.
Burnett is still a ways off his commitment date, with a busy spring and summer on deck, but he told Rivals that he would like to commit before his senior season begins in the fall and enroll — wherever he decides to go — early.
