Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Jeremiah Bryson To Pitt

Pitt received its 18th verbal commitment overall and second running back commitment today from Jeremiah Bryson out of Tennessee. Bryson is a two-star recruit as rated by Scout and a three-star as rated by Rivals.

Bryson reportedly had offers from eight schools including Pitt, North Carolina, Maryland, Illinois, and others.

Linebackers coach Bernard Clark, who played in college down south at Miami, was the recruiter.

The big story on Bryson is that he's trying to rebound after an amazing freshman year, when he rushed for nearly 1,300 yards and had 17 touchdowns. We all know message board fodder needs to be taken with a heaping tablespoon of salt, but this Tennessee Vols' board lit up after his freshman year and four touchdown/170 yard performance in the state championship game. He 'only' had about 1,450 yards in his sophomore and junior season combined, failing to reach 1,000 yards in each. Injuries have limited him in the passt a bit over that time.

Since then, he's been focusing on being more of a straight forward runner instead of going side to side:
Jeremiah Bryson's teammates have made a request of the Smyrna standout senior.

They want the old Bryson — the one who ran for nearly 1,300 yards as a freshman and was a key cog in Smyrna's second Class 5A state championship.

And that starts with his running style.

"My teammates have talked about it," Bryson said. "They want to see the Jeremiah from my freshman year. My sophomore and junior year I thought I could run outside. I'm trying to take it back to my old self. Instead of going east and west I want to go more north and south."
Looks like he's doing just that so far this season as he's averaging about 100 yards per game, his highest total over his career. In his last game, he had 125 yards and two touchdowns. He also is doubling as a defensive back this year.

I'm not saying that Pitt is desperate for running backs at this point. They've got Ray Graham for at least one more year next season and Jameel Poteat is a four-star recruit coming in next season as well. But this looks like a pretty good get for someone rated so low. The rating (particularly the two-star) is most assuredly due to the somewhat down seasons he had as a sophomore and junior. But if he gets back up to over 1,000 yards this season, that rating will likely improve.

2 comments:

  1. Their recruiting strategy confounds me unless they plan to move some of these kids to defense.

    Pitt really needs to build quality depth along the oline.

    Isn't Huggins the NJ kid still considering Pitt?

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  2. Pitt's current recruiting list has as many guys on defense as it does on offense...actually 1-2 of the athletes committed are expected to transfer over to defense, so there may be even more on that side of the ball.

    It's the O-Line that bothers me - they've got one commit so far and he's only a three-star. They're going to have to reach out to a JUCO kid or two...at least you'd think.

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