#45 Days Away from Pitt Football: Erik Gill

If you spend any time on Twitter, you no doubt have seen people posting certain Pitt players wearing uniform numbers that correspond with the number of days left until the football season kicks off. Jim did it last year and this year, Pat Narduzzi has been doing it.

I know we have a lot of younger readers here and also some folks that may not have spent their entire lives following Pitt sports. For that reason, I thought it would be cool to not only do the countdown here, but also give a brief writeup on the player to potentially help fans connect a little more with some of the all-time greats.

Quick disclaimer - this isn't necessarily about picking the best player for each number. Not only is that disputable in many instances, but it's not really the point of the exercise. So don't be offended if your favorite player doesn't make the list here. I'll probably mirror Narduzzi's list for the most part but may go off the board in a few instances.

These will also be brief, folks. It's the offseason and we all use this time to wind down a bit. These won't be theses or anything, but we'll cobble together a few facts for each guy.

Finally, feel free to add on to a player's accomplishments in the comments section. Some I'll leave out due to space/time and some I may not even know about. But this will be a good learning exercise for all of us.

Continuing our countdown today is tight end Erik Gill.

Gill redshirted as a true freshman in 2001 and played sparingly as a backup in 2002 and 2003. But by the time he was a junior, he started to develop into a talented player.

In 2004, he became the full-time starter at tight end and had 25 catches for 433 yards, third most on the team. His four touchdown receptions were also tied for second most on the team as he became one of the top targets of Tyler Palko. His most memorable performance that year was a big game, including a huge catch and run late, against Notre Dame with six catches for 89 yards and a touchdown.

Gill's production dropped off slightly as a senior (21 catches for 244 yards with a touchdown), which probably contributed him not being drafted. Gill signed with the Dallas Cowboys as an undrafted free agent, but never played in the NFL.

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