Max Issaka Makes Second Pitt Commit This Week

Pitt picked up another commit today - DE Max Issaka from...of course, New Jersey.

Issaka picked the Panthers over Michigan State, UCONN, North Carolina, and several others.  He was another find of the wildly popular Jeff Hafley.  Rivals and Scout both rate him as a three-star prospect.  Rivals also puts him as the 13th best recruit in New Jersey.

This ESPN Rise feature seems to indicate that Penn State had offered, but I haven't seen that anywhere else today, so it appears to either have been incorrect or Penn State pulled the offer:

Max Issaka came out to the camp while recovering from a partial torn meniscus and still dominated every phase. Has great speed and a quick first step, but still needs to develop a counter move rather than just relying on his speed. Rutgers, Pitt, Maryland and Penn State lead, but the Nittany Lions have offered.

Issaka was Pitt's second DL verbal this week. ESPN has some video.  Last season as a junior, he had 58 tackles and six sacks.  That's not all, his MaxPreps page (previous link) also shows he was a punter/kicker as well.

Rutgers Begs...Please. Just. Go. Away.

Pitt was all over the New Jersey territory yet again, landing somewhat of a mystery recruit in DT Marquise Wright, out of Paramus Catholic.  I say 'mystery' because the major scouting sites are pretty far apart in rating him.

Scout lists him as the 21st best DT in the nation and gives him a three-star.  Rivals, meanwhile, is much higher on him, calling him the 4th best DT and a four-star.  So with that said, it's kind of hard to say where he should rank.  But when schools such as Penn State, WVU, Georgia, Florida State, Oklahoma and about ten others all offered scholarships, I'll lean towards the Rivals ranking.

No need for me to go into the whole ranking debate right now - we all know how meaningless they can be.  But beating out quality D-I programs is promising at the very least.

Here's a brief interview with Marquise apparently from ESPN (camera work not so good).  By the way, ESPN spells his name here without the 'E' on the end, even though everywhere else I've seen it, it's spelled with the 'E'.  Meanwhile, here's a highlight video on ESPN.com as well (need an Insider subscription to view it) and it's spelled with the 'E' here.  Way to stay on top of things there, Ess-Pen.

Seriously, though.  Someone needs to get Jeff Hafley and Pitt the heck away from New Jersey.  Dude is killing it there, landing Bill Belton, Gary Nova, and now Wright.  Plus he's got about a dozen more recruits (including some more four-stars) on his hit list - all from the Garden State.  As a matter of fact, ALL of his recruits since coming to Pitt have been from New Jersey, so he's got a pretty good hold on that area.

Nice.