#8 Days Until Pitt Football: Matt Lytle

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 quarterback Matt Lytle.

Lytle got his first chance as Pitt's starting quarterback in 1996 after being a backup in 1995 as a freshman. He had 1,249 passing yards to go along with eight touchdowns that season, but lost his job in 1997 to Pete Gonzalez. After Gonzalez graduated in 1997, Lytle again regained the job as Pitt's starter. The team struggled that year going 2-9, but Lytle had career-bests in yardage (2,092) and touchdowns (16).

Lytle went undrafted in 1999, but still found his way into the NFL. In 2000, he played with the Seattle Seahawks and in 2001, with the Carolina Panthers. Lytle actually got an NFL start that year with the Panthers missing their top two quarterbacks. Those were his only two years in the NFL, but he also played in NFL Europe, the CFL, and the Indoor Football League.

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