Pitt Football Recruiting: Shai McKenzie to make official Pitt visit this weekend

With football season wrapped up, talk regarding the sport is going to be shifting to recruiting pretty soon. In that regard, Pitt is expecting to host a pretty big visitor this weekend when local running back Shai McKenzie makes an official visit to the school, per his Twitter account:

Official visit to Pitt this weekend 🙌

— ShaiMck_5 (@ShaiMcK_5) December 4, 2013

Not sure if he'll be around for the Loyola game on Friday night.

McKenzie, of course, is one of the big fish still left on Pitt's radar for the 2014 class. A four-star running back, he could become the biggest recruit to the team for the upcoming season.

One interesting development here is that the Panthers have quietly built some depth at running back. The team's three top backs, Isaac Bennett, James Conner, and Rachid Ibrahim, are all back for next year. There's talk about Conner playing defense potentially, but that's no guarantee at this point. Then, there are the three verbal commits at running back next year - Dennis Briggs, Qadree Ollison, and Chris James.

Someone's going to have to redshirt, obviously, and there could be a position change or two. But the point is that Pitt is less strapped for a running back than they once were. That's not to say landing McKenzie wouldn't be a huge pickup - if he's healthy, he quite easily could be the best back on the roster. But the Panthers have made the unit a priority and they've got a lot of options there.

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