Pitt Battling for Local Pass Rusher

Arizona extended an offer to Ashton Blatt a day after he’d trimmed his list of scholarship options to eight, the Pittsburgh Panthers among that group.

Whether the Wildcats were a day late to enter the race is unclear. Meanwhile, Pitt is up against Duke, Indiana, Penn State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin, and West Virginia in battling for his pledge.

Last week, Pittsburgh Central Catholic’s head coach Ryan Lehmeier spoke glowingly of his soon-to-be edge defender.

“He's another kid where the body kind of took off. He's every bit of 6-3.5, 6-4, tremendously long arms, and just a rangy, quick-twitch, physical kid,” Lehmeier said. “We had a lot of discussions...going into his junior year...He was showing the one thing (that leads to) edge players getting recruited.

“He can come out of the two-point, he can play in the three (tech). We kind of sat down and told him, 'We really think this is where you fit,' as one of those edge players, and just being able to use his combination of size and speed. I think anytime you have a guy that played quarterback, they have a big picture of what's going on, the down and distance and pass tendencies.”

“He does a really good job of playing the run on the way to the quarterback, too. That's a trait that's tough for some of these young kids. The guy kind of just really blew up. You see these players like TJ Watt and Maxx Crosby, some of these guys that come off the edge. That's kind of what we were trying to sell him at first, and he gravitated towards it, and he had one of the best seasons of any of our guys last year.”

This weekend, Blatt took his official visit to West Virginia, a rival of the Panthers who will take on the Mountaineers on the road this fall.

Currently, Blatt doesn’t have a date ironed out for an official visit at Pitt, but that visit can be ironed and attended out in short order as he’s a local prospect.

Make sure you bookmark Inside the Panthers for the latest news, exclusive interviews, recruiting coverage, and more!

Follow Inside the Panthers on Twitter: @InsidePitt