Inside The Panthers

Former Pitt QB Earns Honors In Debut

A former Pitt Panthers quarterback is making his presence felt across the FCS already.
Theo Newhouse|
Sep 7, 2024; Stanford, California, USA; Cal Poly Mustangs head coach Paul Wulff looks on before a game against the Stanford Cardinal at Stanford Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
Sep 7, 2024; Stanford, California, USA; Cal Poly Mustangs head coach Paul Wulff looks on before a game against the Stanford Cardinal at Stanford Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images | Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images

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Pittsburgh Panthers

The towering 6-6 former Pitt Panthers quarterback Ty Dieffenbach has already begun to make his mark in his first career collegiate start with the Cal Poly Mustangs over in California.

He earned Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week after throwing for 263 yards, running for 69, and accounting for 3 total TDs as the Mustangs took down San Diego 41-17 in their season opener. With 1:05 remaining in the first half he had a 43-yard TD run to help put the game away.

The Mustang offense racked up 469 yards in total, Dieffenbach accounted for 332 of them. He went 18/27(66.7%) and threw a TD from both 14 and 12 yards out. His favorite target was Michael Briscoe who had 9 receptions for 110 yards.

The former 3-star QB recruit out of Agoura Hills, California actually played receiver his freshman year of high school before making the switch over to QB where he threw for over 4,000 yards and 48 touchdowns throughout the rest of high school. His senior year was limited due to injury.

Dieffenbach reeled in offers from Pitt, UNLV, Tulane, San Diego St, Colorado, and numerous other programs. He originally committed to UNLV in June of 2022 prior to his senior season before flipping over to Pitt in December after the season.

He came to Pittsburgh as an early enrollee where he redshirted and did not see any in-game action last year as a redshirt-freshman either. 

When he arrived at Pitt Frank Cignetti was the offensive coordinator and played a big role in recruiting him. Cignetti is now the offensive coordinator at Dii Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Last year, during his redshirt freshman year Pitt’s offensive coordinator was Cade Bell who came over from Western Carolina.

Pitt’s QB room last year featured Eli Holstien, Nate Yarnell, David Lynch, and Julian Dugger who all saw in-game action. Dugger is now at Washington St and Yarnell is at Texas St.

Cal Poly is approximately 150 miles away from his hometown Agoura Hills. Pitt was over 2,000.

Next week he will have his hands full against Utah who’s coming off a big 43-10 win against UCLA where they only gave up 136 yards passing yards. Both Utah and UCLA recruited Dieffenbach in high school.

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Theo Newhouse
THEO NEWHOUSE

Theo Newhouse-Godine is a current student at Point Park University and a former DII student athlete at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He produces a podcast, Theo’s Tailgate, which highlights and features athletes from the Pittsburgh area. Theo is a lifelong Pittsburgh sports fan from the neighborhood of Highland Park and recently completed an internship with the Pittsburgh Downtown Media Partnership as an investigative journalist.

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