Pitt placed in top five of offensive guard Mao Glynn

The Pitt football program got confirmation that it is in good standing with one of the top linemen in the country on Wednesday, as Mao Glynn, a guard out of Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, released his top five and placed Pitt among the quintet of schools. The other four programs, which should look familiar to fans of the old Big East, include Cincinnati, Louisville, Rutgers and West Virginia.

”Thank you to all the schools who have recruited me to this point, but as of this time, this is my top five,” the lineman wrote in a message posted on Twitter. “This list is subject to change over the course of the next few weeks. Please respect my decision.”

Over the course of his recruitment, Glynn has received 14 scholarship offers, and the most notable programs to fall outside of his top five include Iowa State and Pitt’s ACC rivals NC State and Virginia. Four of the other six are Ohio-based schools from the MAC.

Glynn is a 6’4”, 295-pound prospect with three-star ratings from 247Sports, ESPN and Rivals. Rivals considers Glynn a high-level three-star recruit with a 5.7-point score on its 6.1-point scale. The threshold for a four-star rating is 5.8 points. In addition, the recruiting website ranks him as the No. 9 guard in the country in the 2021 class. Meanwhile, 247Sports sees Glynn as the No. 41 guard in the nation, and ESPN has yet to rank him.

Pitt’s placement in Glynn’s top five is the latest in a series of positive signs from the recruit. In 2019, the lineman took two unofficial visits to Pitt: one on June 8 and one on September 21. That means he just missed Pitt’s recruiting blitz on June 14, but he was in attendance for the team’s dramatic 35-34 win over UCF. And Pitt may already be in better standing than some within Glynn’s top five.

“My big three are Pitt, Louisville and UC,” Glynn told Josh Helmholdt of Rivals in March. “I talk to them a lot, talk to the position coaches, the recruiting guys from the area, and it’s more of a bond. UC, Pitt and Louisville do a very good job of making me feel like family.”

Glynn also noted in the interview that he had planned to visit Pitt again prior to the issuance of stay-at-home orders amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. He was also considering trips to Auburn, Bowling Green, Cincinnati, Kent State, Louisville and Toledo but was forced to cancel those. As a result, his recruiting process has been delayed, and it may be months until Glynn comes to a decision on a college.

“The game plan did change,” he said. “Now I am thinking about playing my whole senior season without committing.”

While Pitt may have to wait for an answer, landing a commitment from Glynn would be a significant development for an offensive line that ranked 86th in the nation in sacks allowed and struggled to open up holes for the team’s 118th-ranked rushing attack in 2019.

And if Glynn does eventually choose Pitt, he could find himself lining up alongside a much more formidable group than the one trotted out last year, as the Panthers have former four-star recruit Matt Goncalves waiting in the wings, with incoming linemen Michael Statham and Branson Taylor set to join the team in 2020.