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If you spend any time on Twitter, you no doubt have seen people posting certain Pitt players wearing uniform numbers that correspond with the number of days left until the football season kicks off. Jim did it last year and this year, Pat Narduzzi has been doing it.
I know we have a lot of younger readers here and also some folks that may not have spent their entire lives following Pitt sports. For that reason, I thought it would be cool to not only do the countdown here, but also give a brief writeup on the player to potentially help fans connect a little more with some of the all-time greats.
Quick disclaimer – this isn’t necessarily about picking the best player for each number. Not only is that disputable in many instances, but it’s not really the point of the exercise. So don’t be offended if your favorite player doesn’t make the list here. I’ll probably mirror Narduzzi’s list for the most part but may go off the board in a few instances.
These will also be brief, folks. It’s the offseason and we all use this time to wind down a bit. These won’t be theses or anything, but we’ll cobble together a few facts for each guy.
Finally, feel free to add on to a player’s accomplishments in the comments section. Some I’ll leave out due to space/time and some I may not even know about. But this will be a good learning exercise for all of us.
Continuing our countdown today is Lesean McCoy and Darrelle Revis. While I tried to keep this to a one player per day thing, as I did with No. 56 (Russ Grimm and Chris Doleman), I’m bending the rules here since both of these guys are pretty deserving.
Revis was an immediate star and was a Freshman All-American in 2004. He followed that up with two All-Big East First Team appearances in 2005 and 2006 and finished his three-year Pitt career with eight interceptions, returning two for touchdowns, and also two punt return scores including the famous 2006 score, which was named as ESPN’s top college Play of the Year. Revis was a first-round pick in the NFL Draft in 2007 by the New York Jets and has gone on to star in the pros, reaching five Pro Bowls and being one of the premier cornerbacks in the league. Revis also won a Super Bowl with the New England Patriots in the 2014 season.
Shady played at Pitt for only two seasons, but starred in both, racking up more than 2,800 rushing yards in that short time while scoring 36 touchdowns. His 21 touchdowns in 2008 were the most from scrimmage in the Big East and gave him the conference’s overall scoring title. In 2007, he was the Big East’s Freshman of the Year and also made the conference’s First Team as well as being named a Freshman All-American. In 2008, he was the Big East Player of the Year and was again named to the First Team while being named an All-American. McCoy, too, has starred in the NFL. After ‘slipping’ to the second round in the NFL Draft, he’s made four Pro Bowls and was the NFL’s rushing leader in 2013.
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