Pitt Football’s Recent Recruiting Run Should Impress Even Jaded Fans

It’s still way too early to start making any declarations and throwing around the term ‘the best’ BUT it’s not too early to state that Pitt is putting together a very impressive recruiting class.

Pitt’s Class of 2026 was strengthened over the weekend with the addition of four new members–with one player yet to be revealed.

The last two weeks have been tremendous in terms of quality additions, including 4-star recruits: DE Reston Lehman (Peters Township), OL Day’Jon Moore (Willis, Texas), LB Isiah Simmons, WR Jaydon Dunbar (Thomasville, Georgia) and RB Damon Ferguson.

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The talent in this class goes a lot deeper than just the 4-star players, much deeper.

The area in which I’m intrigued by the most is the talent that Pat Narduzzi and Ryan Manalac have added at the linebackers’ position. It looks as though Pitt has added some young sharks that can be added to the waters to replace Kyle Louis, Rasheem Biles and Braylon Lovelace.

Pitt has received commitments from three linebackers all of which are athletic and fit the mold of players that Manalac wants to be in his attack defense.

Marcus Jennings

Three-star Marcus Jennings (Detroit, Michigan), Isaiah Simmons (Norfolk, Virginia) and Desmond Johnson (Miami, Florida) are the next wave of linebackers at Pitt.

Simmons and Johnson committed over the last couple weekends and did so with an impressive list of offers. Simmons selected Pitt over West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Virginia, Syracuse, Michigan, Georgia Tech and Duke. On Sunday, Johnson choose Pitt over opportunities from Central Florida, Arkansas, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Louisville, Mississippi State, NC State, SMU and Wake Forest.

Two other headlines of this group are: 1) the talent that Pitt has added at wide receiver with Dunbar, Demetrice McCray (Orlando, Florida) and Dylan Wester (Sarasota, Florida). Dunbar is no doubt the headline name, but McCray could be a BIGTIME sleeper. 2) the fact that Pitt has received commitments from five players from the talent rich state of Texas. A big thumbs up to Jacob Bronowski, get that man a raise!

Pitt’s Class of 2026 is also getting noticed by the national recruiting services. Here’s where the Panthers currently rank per Rivals, On3 Sports and 247Sports. Keep in mind that some of these services have a few of Pitt’s commitments unranked and that will no doubt change in time, which should improve their standings.

PITT FOOTBALL’S TEAM RECRUITING RANKING

RIVALS: 35th
247 SPORTS:  22nd (only 3 points from moving up to 16th)
On3 SPORTS:  35th

Pitt’s Rivals Recruiting Ranking the Last 4 Years: Class of 2025- 45th, Class of 2024- 37th, Class of 2023- 52nd, Class of 2022- 68th.

Once again, it’s early and a long way from December but the feeling and buzz around this group of recruits is very different from the last few years. Credit to Narduzzi, his assistants and recruiting staff behind the scenes who have put in bigtime work this offseason traveling from state to state. The business of recruiting is a ton different today than it was even 4-5 years ago and this staff is young and energetic enough to embrace the challenges. The results of that have definitely shown.