Leitao Leaves Pitt in Lurch

After a lengthy flirtation from both sides it appears that the Dave Leitao to the Pitt bench plan is officially dead as sources close to Leitao have reported that he has turned down the Panthers offer.  Given his cushy financial situation after his buyout from the University of Virginia and his current role as President of the Black Coaches Association this doesn’t come as a terrible surprise, in fact it is probably more surprising that Leitao was interested in the job in the first place and it speaks to just how far the Panther program has come this decade.

So now with Dave Leitao and Dino Gaudio both taking this year off after being sacked from their ACC jobs it will be interesting to see where the Pitt assistant search goes from here.  Will the Panthers look to another strong east coast recruiter to hedge their bets against any poaching of assistants by Mike Rice and Rutgers?  Will they add a DC recruiter to replace the pull of Tom Herrion?  Or will they continue their interest in opening up the state of Ohio and the rest of the midwest and target a big name from the Chicago area…perhaps even as cover against a move to the Big Ten?  The one thing that we do know is that there will be a lot of tea leaf reading over the next month as Jamie Dixon continues his search.