Pitt football coaches heavily recruited wide receiver Cam Saddler, but after he chose Pitt in 2007, the redshirt sophomore decided to do some recruiting of his own.

The Gateway High School star chose the Panthers over Virginia and West Virginia… Pitt football coaches heavily recruited wide receiver Cam Saddler, but after he chose Pitt in 2007, the redshirt sophomore decided to do some recruiting of his own.

The Gateway High School star chose the Panthers over Virginia and West Virginia after head coach Dave Wannstedt and assistant head coach Greg Gattuso successfully courted him.

Now, three years later, Saddler and his friends from that same recruiting class are a big part of Pitt’s nucleus.

The WPIAL class of 2008 was loaded with talent, and Saddler knew that if the athletes he had been playing against all season followed him to Pitt, they would be something special.

So he became an unofficial ambassador for Pitt, trying to get Panther recruits to make the same decision he did.

Saddler began with current starting quarterback and former Central Catholic star Tino Sunseri.

The two met during their sophomore year at the U.S. Army Combine in Texas where their fathers introduced them to one another.

“We talked about us being from Pittsburgh and just the tradition and how we could kind of try to start to bring the tradition back,” Saddler said.

Yet, Sunseri ended up committing to Louisville. He began to waver on that decision after seeing what Pitt football was building toward. Sunseri stayed in close contact with Saddler in the days leading up to his decision and let him know that Saddler’s decision would affect his as well.

“As soon as he announced — he was actually still on stage while he was taking questions — and he called me and let me know,” Sunseri said. “Later that night, I called Coach Wannstedt and everybody to let them know that I’d be coming to the University of Pittsburgh.”

Once into the fold, Sunseri joined Saddler in his recruiting.

“Once Tino jumped on board he did just as much work as me,” Saddler said.

“He was like ‘we could start something special, there’s a lot of guys out there who still aren’t committed and we could try to work on a couple of those guys,’” Saddler said. “I figured, why not, let’s give it a shot.”

Saddler said he was easily able to sway highly touted high school teammate Shayne Hale into joining the Panthers. And Hale committed about a month after Saddler.

“Shayne was really easy,” Saddler joked when asked about persuading his friend and teammate.

Sunseri didn’t have much trouble talking high school teammate Andrew Taglianetti into committing, since Taglianetti wanted to stay close to home.

“We thought [about] all the talent that we had in the WPIAL that year, the best chance for us to be successful was to go to the same school,” Sunseri said. “We always competed against each other, so we thought it would be really cool to play with each other.”

One of Saddler’s next targets was Norwin receiver Mike Shanahan. Saddler got to know Shanahan, Pitt’s current No. 2 receiver, on his recruiting visits. When Saddler’s Gateway team played Norwin that season, Shanahan scored a whopping five touchdowns and it was at that point Saddler knew Pitt had to have him.

“I just shot him a pitch and let him know what we were trying to do here and he jumped aboard,” Saddler said.

But it was really another Pitt receiver who was able to seal the deal on Shanahan’s recruitment.

On his visit to Pitt, Shanahan met with Jon Baldwin, who had already committed, and Baldwin asked his former Amateur Athletic Union basketball teammate to follow him to Oakland.

“Whenever I had a meeting with Wannstedt, Baldwin came up to me and he said he had committed already and he wanted me to do the same,” Shanahan said. “I committed that morning too.”

Acquiring those local players would have been a recruiting feat in itself, but Saddler’s influence spread even further, into eastern Pennsylvania.

In Easton, Pa., current Panther free safety Jarred Holley was down to his final two school choices: Pitt and Virginia.

Since they were both being recruited by the same schools and had seen each other at a couple camps, Saddler and Holley knew each other.

“Once I realized he was down to Virginia and Pitt, I shot him a couple texts and told him what we were trying to do,” Saddler said.

The whole time he was pursuing these players, Saddler was cautious that what he was doing was all within NCAA rules and stayed in close contact with the coaching staff to make sure.

“I was always in touch with our coaches because they knew what I was trying to do,” Saddler said. “Coach [Chris] LaSala and coach Gattuso would let me know what I could do and what I couldn’t.”

Three years later, the players in that recruiting class now shape the core of Pitt’s passing game and parts of its defense, something that those players foresaw even back then.

It all seemed to register for them  at the same time — at the Big 33 All-Star game in June between the best high school players in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

“It kind of hit me when we were at the Big 33 game,” Shanahan said. “Everyone was starting and doing well so I definitely saw it back then.”

Saddler agreed with his good friend and roommate.

“Once we got to the Big 33 game, all of us for the most part were playing in it so I knew something special was going to happen,” he said.

“Whenever we were out at the Big 33 game a lot of us that are actually now starting on offense were playing in that game,” Sunseri said. “And the whole week we kept on saying that this was how it’s going to be when we got to Pitt and the Big East was going to have to worry about all the playmakers.”

In some ways, their recruiting techniques resemble  what occurs in professional sports. This summer, LeBron James made headlines with “The Decision” as he decided to go to the Miami Heat to play with his talented friends Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade to try and win a championship.

Now with Saddler and his friends entering their third year at Pitt, that dream of a Big East Championship is well within reach.

“We were the decision before ‘The Decision,’” Saddler said.