Transfer from Tennessee faces unusual season on scout team
This fall will be an unusual one for Dewayne Hendrix.
He’ll spend the next month, just as he has for the past 13 years, preparing for football season. He’ll go through practices with his Pitt teammates getting ready for the Sept. 5 opener against Youngstown State. But then, Hendrix will have to take a step back.
After transferring to Pitt from Tennessee this offseason, Hendrix will have to sit out the 2015 season in accordance with NCAA transfer guidelines. He’ll spend this fall on the scout team, preparing the starters for each upcoming game.
“Of course I don’t want to sit out this year, but I look at it like this: I’ve got time to learn the plays, I’ve got time to
“I’ve got to take advantage of this year to go out and try and get it next year.”
The Panthers certainly hope Hendrix is ready to go in 2016. A former four-star recruit, he possesses the talent to be a significant piece of coach Pat Narduzzi’s defense.
“He’s a heck of an athlete,” Narduzzi said. “You put on some high school tape and you’re not going to find many like him. He’s a difference-maker.”
Hendrix chose Tennessee out of high school, but almost immediately realized it wasn’t the right fit for him. After the Volunteers’ first game of the 2014 season, he knew he wanted to transfer.
Hendrix admitted that he was drawn in by Tennessee’s Southeastern Conference flair and flashy facilities, and didn’t really take the time to ask the right questions in the recruiting process.
“Biggest conference, 100,000 people [in the stands], you get caught up in all of that,” he said. “You don’t actually pay attention to the people because you’re too busy worrying about game day and all that other stuff.”
Once he decided to transfer, the Panthers were an intriguing option to Hendrix, an Illinois native, because he was originally recruited out of high school by Narduzzi, then at Michigan State. Hendrix watched those impressive Spartans defenses and thought he could fit in, likely as a boundary defensive end.
When he visited Pitt this spring, though, it was the relationships that sealed the deal for him.
“The second time around, I wanted to judge off the people,” he said. “At the end of the day, you want to be around good people. I’d rather be around good people than nice facilities. This time around, I really paid attention to the people. That was really it.”
Narduzzi has been able to connect with Hendrix in another way, as he also transferred colleges — from Youngstown State to Rhode Island — after his freshman season.
“It’s not easy to transfer. I know it’ll be tough on him,” Narduzzi said. “I think it’s a tough decision for him to make, but he’s just got to keep his head down and work.”
Most of that work is going to be on the scout team, and Narduzzi is hopeful Hendrix will take to that part of his job, though he cautioned that elite talent doesn’t necessarily make a great scoutteam player.
“It’ll make our offense better, but … it differs,” Narduzzi said. “I’ve been around great players; some have been great scout-team players, some have been bad. We’ll find out.”