Pitt FB Recruiting
Pitt Extends First Offer to Transfer Portal Punter
It’s pretty clear that punting has been a black hole for Pitt over the past two seasons. It’s so bad that there will likely be a new Week 1 starter for the third straight season.
Pitt currently has incumbent Caleb Junko on scholarship, but his play slipped drastically over the back half of the season, so it’s not surprising that the coaching staff is once again searching the transfer portal for an option.
VMI transfer Jalk Culbreath is the first transfer portal punter to pick up an offer from Pitt this offseason.
Extremely grateful to receive an offer from Pitt! pic.twitter.com/SkaKDL8Zag
— Jack Culbreath (@JackCulbreath) December 20, 2023
Culbreath — a 6-foot-4, 235-pound senior punter from Charlottesville, Va. — has received offers from Pitt, Georgia State, Portland State, Mercer and Arkansas State since entering the transfer portal last month.
As a four-year starter at VMI, Culbreath punted the ball 199 times for 8,541 yards (42.9 yards per punt), and he racked up 38 punts of 50+ yards and pinned punts inside the 20-yard line 46 times.
He averaged 43.6 yards per punt in 2023, ranking 11th in the FCS, and he had 14 punts of at least 50 yards and 17 punts pinned inside the 20-yard line.
Punting was, yet again, a disaster for the Panthers in 2023. Caleb Junko beat out Elon transfer Jeff Yurk, who then re-entered the portal soon after, for the starting job in 2023 and was placed on scholarship before the season.
Junko averaged 41.6 yards per punt in 2023, but his inconsistency hurt the Panthers in more than than one game last season. The blocked punts and the shanked punts were disastrous last season.
Caleb Guess is the only other punter currently on the roster, and he hasn’t punted since an ill-fated stint in 2022 — averaging 35.3 yards per punt on 12 tries. He’s served as the Panthers’ placeholder.
Pitt has already begun to revamp its special teams unit, with UConn transfer Nilay Upadhyayula arriving as the new long snapper. It remains to be seen what happens at punter, but it seems as though the coaching staff will at least hold another competition.
For all your college football transfer portal needs, check out the Portal Report and their Transfer Portal Tracker.
The punting situation was hilarious. I’m not sure how somebody let that become an ongoing problem. It needs fixed.
And, I hope they let Coach Bell hire his offensive assistant coaches.