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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 running back Billy West.
As a freshman at Pitt in the mid 1990s, West was the first 'star' on the football program when I got to campus. West wasn't a star in the way that some of the Panthers' other running backs were, but he did have a great year with the Panthers in 1994, rushing for 1,358 yards and six touchdowns. Overall, from 1993 to 1997, West ran for 2,803 yards and had 21 total touchdowns. That 1994 season saw him earn the Big East Offensive Player of the Year Award and he led the entire conference in rushing. But chest and leg injuries kept him off the field and he never was able to regain the magic from that season in 1994.
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