‘Best time of your life’: Pitt football opens spring practice
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Among the handful of opening days on the annual calendar for major college football, Tuesday’s is far from the most anticipated.
It isn’t as important as the start of preseason camp or, certainly, the first gameday of a season.
But this unseasonably cold Tuesday morning at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex’s indoor facility was special because represented the first time the 2023 Pitt Panthers gathered for a formal on-field workout.
However Pitt’s season ends, it began in earnest with the first spring practice.
“I love it,” said offensive lineman Jake Kradel, a Butler alumnus who will be entering his sixth year with the program. “This is just as fun as it was Day 1 (of his first spring practice).”
Kradel isn’t the only Pitt player or coach who embraced taking the field for the first of the sanctioned workouts that span Tuesday to the April 15 annual Blue-Gold Game.
“Any time you get to taste of first spring ball, it’s exciting,” senior offensive tackle Matt Goncalves said. “Getting ready to come out here and grind with your brothers, that’s the best time of your life.
“I love it.”
The returnees officially welcomed 12 newcomers to a practice setting, including five transfers. None of the newcomers are more high-profile than Phil Jurkovec, the sixth-year quarterback who starred at Pine-Richland High School and arrived at Pitt via Notre Dame (two seasons) and Boston College (24 starts over the past three years).
He joins true freshman Ty Dieffenbach and former Penn State QB Christian Veilleux as newcomers to a position room that also includes scholarship holdover Nate Yarnell. Jurkovec, though, is the heavy favorite to succeed the since-transferred Kedon Slovis as Pitt’s starter.
During the early portion of practice open to the media, Jurkovec did footwork drills and made throws. Dozens of on-field sessions remain to assimilate into the team, but at least Jurkovec doesn’t have too much of an adjustment to a new offense. During Jurkovec’s first two years at Boston College, his offensive coordinator was Frank Cignetti Jr., who now holds the same position with the Panthers.
That means Jurkovec has twice the experience in a Cignetti offense than most of the rest of his new offensive teammates. At this time last year when spring practice began, Cignetti only had been around the players for a matter of weeks.
On Tuesday, the comfort level with each other already had been long established.
“It’s awesome. We know the calls now,” Kradel said. “We are not guessing. We are out there going full speed, not making it ‘Oh, is it this or that?’ No, we are just going full steam ahead.”
While 11 starters are back on offense and defense, high-profile holes need to be filled. On Tuesday, those competing to earn first-team status got their first formal, on-field audition for the jobs.
Four multi-year defensive starters — defensive tackle Calijah Kancey, end Habakkuk Baldonado, safety Brandon Hill, linebacker SirVocea Dennis — who were invited to the NFL combine are among those who need to be replaced.
“How do we find him?” defensive coordinator Randy Bates said when asked specifically about identifying the next Dennis, “Oh, he will be out here. I guarantee you. We have found them. We will find another one. We will move the guys around, and we will figure out who that is. Did you guys know who Calijah Kancey was five years ago?”
Bates’ point was that among the group of younger players and/or newcomers on the field Tuesday was Pitt’s next core. He had further emphasized it moments earlier.
“I’ll put it this way: (All-Americans) Patrick Jones and Rashad Weaver graduated (after 2020), and we led the country in sacks the next year.
“So we expect ‘the next guy up.’”
The road to identifying those next men up began Tuesday.
“That’s why we’ve got these 15 practices,” senior cornerback M.J. Devonshire said, “to see what those (new starters and contributors) like and what makes them comfortable and how we can play together well.”