Wannstedt wants young receiving corps to step up

With so many uncertainties at various positions heading into training camp, few figured the… With so many uncertainties at various positions heading into training camp, few figured the wide receiver position, one of Pitt’s most productive spots in recent years, to be one of the Panthers’ gray areas.

The gray lies not in who will start, however, but who will fill the depth chart and produce, aside from Pitt’s top two returning targets, Greg Lee and Joe DelSardo. The two juniors sit solidly atop the depth chart based primarily on successful 2004 campaigns.

A reigning second-team all-Big East performer, Lee returns with aspirations of duplicating his success from 2004 (68 receptions, 1,297 yards and 10 touchdowns). His breakout year has since earned him significant amounts of preseason praise, including being named the No. 1 wide receiver in the nation by Collegefootballnews.com, setting the 6-foot-2 Florida native up for a legitimate run at college football’s Biletnikoff Award, presented annually to the nation’s top receiver.

Complimenting Lee in the flanker spot will be DelSardo, a shifty, dependable possession receiver who blossomed last year in the shadows of the spotlights shining on Lee. In a year where he went from a walk-on to scholarship player, the Seton-LaSalle alum caught 49 balls for nearly 600 yards and four scores, including one memorable one-handed grab in a 41-17 romp over Rutgers.

But what the rest of the depth chart looks like still remains to be seen, even though head coach Dave Wannstedt is unsure of exactly what he is looking for.

“We’re waiting,” he said. “We need a bunch of receivers to step up. I’ll be honest, right now I don’t know who the group is. Know that we’re going to need two or three guys that will become players that we can depend on if we’re going to be the type of passing team that we want to be.”

And a passing team the Panthers have been. A Pitt receiver has led the Big East in receiving for seven of the last eight seasons and two wideouts, Antonio Bryant and Larry Fitzgerald, took home the Biletnikoff in 2000 and 2003, respectively. While there are a plethora of possibilities to fill the lineup, the odds indicate that it will be a young position overall.

“We are very young when you look at this group from top to bottom,” Hill said. “However, we have enough experience combined with talent and athletic ability to be a very competitive group this year.”

Sophomores Kelvin Chandler and Derek Kinder will compete for time at the split end position, but the duo has only 50 yards on five catches to show for their short careers. Red shirt sophomore Terrell Allen, who returns to the lineup after sitting out 2004 with a season-ending wrist surgery, possesses some experience by seeing playing time as a true freshman in 2003, but the majority of it was spent returning kickoffs.

The only senior in the wide receiver corps is a converted halfback. Wannstedt recently moved speedy halfback Marcus Furman, known best for his 96-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in an early-season loss to Nebraska last year, to the wide receiver spot, if nothing else than for a different offensive look.

“We made one position change,” Wannstedt said. “There are still two or three positions we are trying to figure out who gives us the best chance to make the most plays, [so] we moved Marcus Furman to receiver. We spent a lot of time on our four wide receiver sets. It actually looked pretty good. He can catch the ball, he’s been a receiver before. We are just trying to get a little more experience at the receiver position.”

Last year, Furman caught 27 passes for 243 yards and his lone career touchdown. While his career stats for three years (44 receptions for 369 yards and one score) may not completely validate the move, Wannstedt said he feels that Furman will ultimately be better off.

“The running back position is a little heavy,” Wannstedt said. “That’s a nice problem to have. We have some numbers. The way [LaRod] Stephens is playing and the way [Brandon] Mason is playing, we have some depth there. It was the combination of the depth we have at running back and wanting a little more depth and experience at the receiver. That was the reason for the move.”

Furman does, however, bring a different look to Wannstedt’s offense that the first-year head coach likes.

“He can catch. He’s fast and smart,” he said of Furman. “It gives us a chance to use some formations at receiver we might not have been able to use.”