Pitt lands a transfer tight end for the 2019 season
Pat Narduzzi received news Tuesday morning that he hopes will solidify a position of weakness on his 2019 Pitt football roster.
After he graduates from Rutgers this spring, tight end Nakia Griffin-Stewart said he intends to transfer to Pitt and spend his final season of eligibility with the Panthers. Griffin-Stewart made the announcement on his Twitter page.
Pitt it is! #H2P pic.twitter.com/llfQYUYIAu
— Big Nak (@NakiaGriffin) February 26, 2019
Pitt’s coach is hoping to bolster the tight end position after losing Chris Clark, Tyler Sear and Charles Reeves Jr. over the past year.
Griffin-Stewart, 6-foot-5, 255 pounds, caught 13 passes for 97 yards and one touchdown and played special teams over the past two seasons for a Rutgers team that struggled to develop consistency at quarterback.
He was named Academic All-Big Ten after the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
Griffin-Stewart’s modest receiving numbers are better than the total (10/69/0) Pitt received last season from tight ends Will Gragg, Jim Medure and Sear. Gragg, a transfer from Arkansas, and Medure, a former walkon, are rising seniors. Sear left the team last year in mid-season.
Tight ends Carson Van Lynn and Grant Carrigan (Pine-Richland) were listed one-two on the depth chart for the Sun Bowl, but both players eventually could move to the offensive line.
Griffin-Stewart is the second tight end to transfer from Rutgers to Pitt under Narduzzi’s watch. Matt Flanagan played the 2017 season at Pitt.
Get the latest news about Pitt football and all things Panthers athletics.
Jerry DiPaola is a TribLive reporter covering Pitt athletics since 2011. A Pittsburgh native, he joined the Trib in 1993, first as a copy editor and page designer in the sports department and later as the Pittsburgh Steelers reporter from 1994-2004. He can be reached at jdipaola@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.