Pitt WR Coach JJ Laster Bringing Dose of ‘Tough Love’ to His Unit

It’s been 15 days since JJ Laster was officially hired as the wide receivers coach at Pitt, and while some would say that two weeks and a day is too short a time to make an impact, Laster would say otherwise.

Laster, a 35-year-old former college running back in his own right, has been tasked with coaching up the wide receivers room vacated by Tiquan Underwood. The Waffle House Gang, as the unit called itself last season, is still largely in place — with a few new additions. But the Waffle House Gang will be renamed soon.

“That was last year,” Laster said Monday at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. “This year, we’re gonna come up with something else. I give those guys free range to call themselves whatever they want to call themselves, but we’ve gotta create our identity this spring.”

The work put in this spring, the bonds built between Laster and his wideouts, will determine what the receiving corps calls itself going forward. Laster is worried about the here and the now — and what’s to come in the future — as opposed to the past.

Laster was initially supposed to be at Old Dominion this season. He accepted a position on the Monarchs’ staff earlier this offseason, but when Underwood bolted for the NFL on Super Bowl Sunday, it opened a position of need.

Laster knew new offensive coordinator Kade Bell well from their time together at Jacksonville State, and then at Western Carolina, so it was a no-brainer. He received an upgrade from the FCS to the FBS once this offseason, and just a month later, he was promoted from Group of Five to Power Four. Quite an adjustment. It’s been quite an adjustment for the Pitt offense already this spring.

The new system is certainly different than anything the wide receivers already on the roster have experienced in their college careers. It helps to have experienced wideouts.

Laster has seen how his new wideouts have been spending time in the facilities, adapting to the offense with each other, and that’s exactly what he wants to see. He wants to unit to be player-led, to have his players be leaders and teachers out on the field even when he’s not around. That teaching is a two-way street.

“It’s a partnership,” Laster said. “We gotta work together, and that’s the only way we’re gonna be successful if we work together and everybody is on the same common goal.”

But of course, with the speed and temp of the offense, it’s not just mental. It’s physical, too.

“You gotta be in shape, obviously, with the tempo and everything that we do,” Laster said. “But also you have to be able to understand the attention to detail. Coach Bell does a great job with his system understanding the spacing, the alignment, different things like that. So, it’s very important for the receivers to understand the spacing, the timing, everything that goes together.”

The attention to detail comes down to the minute details like not lining up too close to the hashes, reaching the exact depth required for any route ran and just the timing in connecting with the quarterback.

“You’ll hear me saying that a lot, double A,” Laster said. “Alignment, assignment.”

Pittsburgh Panthers wide receiver Kenny Johnson (2) November 16, 2023 David Hague/PSN

So, someone like Kenny Johnson? He has all the natural talent in the world, an athletic freak, but Laster is looking forward to honing in on those little details. Answering why he has to cut his split or line up on top of the numbers. If Johnson — someone like Konata Mumpfield — can truly hone in on the attention to detail, the sky is the limit. And Laster is going to make sure he holds his wideouts accountable.

“I’m a hard, demanding coach,” Laster said. “I’m very firm, quick and precise on what I want to get accomplished. I will be hard on them guys because life is hard. We’re all gonna go through tough times but it’s always good to be around great people when you go through those tough times. So, I will be hard on them just so whenever they get out there in the real world, they can understand, like, ‘Hey, I’ve been through the tough times and I know how to get through that.’ So that’s my job. I’m gonna be hard on them. You’re gonna hear me all the time preaching that I’m gonna be hard on them because there’s only a certain percentage of guys that’s gonna go to the league.

“Everybody else is gonna get into that workforce, whether it’s gonna be getting up working a 9-5, going to work every day and having bills and having to take care of family. Some of those guys are going to be fathers. So, they gotta understand that I’m gonna be tough, life is tough, but I also give them tough love. I tell them after we break down every day, it’s all love. When I get on them, I’m getting on them for a reason. I want them to reach their expectations. I want to push them to be successful at everything they do, whether it’s in life, whether it’s in football, whatever it is, I’m pushing them to be the best at everything.”

It may be tough love now, but when those wideouts grow in the system, branch out to whatever the future holds for them and eventually return, they’ll know why Laster was hard on them. It’s in the pursuit of excellence, sure, but also the pursuit of preparing young men for life.”

Of course, football is still important. It’s why Laster came to Pitt, and he has his work cut out for him. The unit was solid last season, hitting its stride over the second half of the season, but the passing game has been a mess for two seasons.

There are some older guys, some younger guys and everything in between. Mumpfield, Johnson and DaeDae Reynolds headline the returning starters, Censere Lee and Raphael Williams are the Western Carolina vets and Izzy Polk, Lamar Seymore, Zion Fowler-El and Che Nwabuko are the young guns looking for more.

Laster just wants to see his players be themselves. Don’t be anyone but yourself. It’s about the consistency in being yourself that stands out to Laster. Whether that’s showing up to practice on time, showing up to meetings on time or showing up to class on time.

“Imma be me, and we have a standard in that room and we gonna continue that standard, and we’re gonna keep that standard high,” Laster said. “So those younger guys, they gonna have to rise to that standard, and those older guys, they’re gonna have to help pick those younger guys to keep them to that standard.”

It’s a work in progress, but Laster doesn’t care where that work happens. In fact, he’d prefer that the work happens on the field. And the teaching happens in the meeting room.

“We don’t care if they mess up right now, we’re worried about tempo,” Laster said. “We’re gonna correct that in the meeting room, that’s when we slow it down and be teachers and teach them. On the field, we’re trying to get a lot of reps.”

He’s gonna be demanding, but it’s all in the pursuit of overall excellence. On and off the field.