Pitt’s Baldwin makes fast progress—literally

By Darrell Laurant  |   Wednesday, October 22, 2008  |  Comments( 2 )

Pittsburgh Panthers
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The Pitt Panthers always figured Jonathan Baldwin would prove a great wide receiver in the long run.

Well, the long runs have started already.

"Because he's so big," Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt told Blue-Gold-News.com after Baldwin's breakout performance in an upset of South Florida, "they have a tendency to underestimate how fast he is."

That was obvious against the Bulls. Besides a 50-yard snag-and-run touchdown on a pass from batterymate Bill Stull, Baldwin caused three pass interference penalties on USF defenders who were forced to grab the 6-foot-5, 220-pound freshman as he blew by them.

"My time will come," Baldwin said afterward.

The next Saturday, he caught three passes for 101 yards and a 60-yard touchdown in a 42-21 rout of Navy, despite playing only 21 snaps.

Again, Wannstedt.

"When he's on the field, everybody knows it," the Pitt coach said of Baldwin, who runs a 4.4 40-yard dash and has a vertical leap of 40-plus inches.

Everybody knew about Baldwin in high school, too -- Florida, Southern Cal, Ohio State and Penn State, all the brand-name programs. But his father had played defensive line for the Panthers, and he wanted to stay close to home.

Baldwin didn't catch his first pass until the fifth game of the season (at Syracuse), and he had to learn a new system of blocking and pass routes. At Aliquippa, he was used much of the time as a tight end.

"A majority of the time, I'll probably play against defensive backs who are 5-9 or 5-10," Baldwin told ESPN. "It's a pretty good advantage to use my size."

You think? The very presence of Baldwin (a Division I prospect in basketball as well as football) in the red zone forces teams to devote at least one defender to him. The youngster provided a brief flash of what was to come in the season opener -- a disappointing loss to Bowling Green -- when he badly beat a one-on-one defender and made a spectacular catch along the left sideline. Unfortunately, he was ruled out of bounds.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Joe Starkey has compared Baldwin to Calvin Johnson. Others look at him in flight and see Randy Moss.

Baldwin roomed with Terrelle Pryor at the U.S. Army All-America Bowl in January, and did his best to persuade Pryor to end his flirtation with Ohio State and join the Panther revival. That didn't work, but Pitt's latest recruit -- wideout Todd Thomas of Beaver Falls -- said Baldwin's fast progress was a factor in his decision. Like Baldwin, Thomas is tall (6-4), big (200), fast (4.4) and a basketball star.

"We should have a pretty good set of wideouts next year with me and him," Thomas said.

You think?

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