Blogs

Pitt received a verbal commitment today from safety Carl Fleming of Reisterstown (Md.) Franklin High School, while he was visiting their training camp on the South Side. The 6-foot-1, 198-pound Fleming, who rushed for 1,099 yards and 15 touchdowns and had six interceptions and 50 tackles, chose the Panthers over scholarship offers from Buffalo, Connecticut, [...]

Dave Wannstedt blew his lid – and got his message across. The Pitt coach abruptly stopped practice during the two-minute drill after senior nose tackle Rashaad Duncan took out his frustrations by slamming left tackle Chase Clowser to the ground. Wannstedt admonished Duncan for saying he was having a “bad day” and taking it out [...]

It took only three days of practice for Dave Wannstedt to voice his displeasure with the play of his quarterbacks, and the Pitt coach didn’t exclude anyone from the conversation after the Panthers completed their first day of training camp in shoulder pads. “With our quarterbacks all coming back from a year ago, I would [...]

Pitt’s first practice in shoulder pads promised to bring more physicality to training camp, and the blue jerseys (defense) won the lion’s share of battles in today’s morning session. The defense dominated the line of scrimmage, completely blowing up some plays to the point that they stopped before they began. That was frustrating for the [...]

The difficult thing about practicing without pads – commonly denounced by coaches as football in shorts, which essentially means it’s not really football – is evaluating line play. That added intrigue to Dave Wannstedt’s initial post-practice comments Wednesday, as the Pitt coach made it a point to praise the performance of redshirt freshman right guard [...]

Have we mentioned how good Mick Williams looks? The words Tony Wise used to describe the Pitt defensive tackle on one play in Wednesday’s morning practice were within PG-13 ratings but still not fit for print. Williams literally manhandled one side of the offensive line during a team drill — and this was during the [...]

If there was one player I wanted to see perform in the afternoon practice session on the first day of Pitt’s training camp, it was freshman receiver Jonathan Baldwin of Aliquippa. He didn’t disappoint. Baldwin put on an aerial display, stretching his 6-foot-5, 220-pound frame for an array of acrobatic receptions. He made a couple [...]

Pitt has chosen “Prove It” as a motto for the season, and one Panthers player who had a lot to prove in the opening practice of training camp was fifth-year senior receiver Derek Kinder. Kinder still has yet to participate in contact drills since tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee last August. [...]

With the most hoopla surrounding the Pitt football program since his arrival four years ago, it was with guarded optimism that Dave Wannstedt addressed his opening remarks at the Panthers’ media day festivities at their South Side practice facility. After riding the wave of momentum from the West Virginia victory in the season finale that [...]