Players select Conner as one of tri-captains
Adam Bisnowaty, Ejuan Price and James Conner will be Pitt’s captains for the 2016 season, Panthers coach Pat Narduzzi said Friday at Pitt’s annual football kickoff luncheon.
The players were chosen based on a vote from teammates who were allowed to name two players for the distinction, with the trio earning what Narduzzi estimated to be 70 percent of the votes.
“Captains are probably the most important part of the program,” Narduzzi said. “They’re going to speak to the team a lot, whether it’s after practice, on Friday night after dinner and meetings or Saturday morning before the game. Once all the coaches walk out, it’s those three. You can say I’m the head coach, coach [Josh] Conklin’s the defensive coordinator, coach [Matt] Canada’s the offensive coordinator and coach [Andre] Powell is the special-teams coordinator, but this is their football team. They will be as good as they want to be and as good as those leaders are.”
A senior offensive lineman from Fox Chapel High School, Bisnowaty was an all-ACC selection in 2015, starting all 12 games he played. Defensive end Price, a Woodland Hills graduate, also an all-ACC honoree last season, finished the season with 48 tackles and 11.5 sacks. After winning ACC player of the year in 2014, Conner missed almost all of last season after the MCL in his right knee was torn in the Panthers’ season-opening victory against Youngstown State.
While selected by their fellow teammates, Narduzzi said the players were, in part, chosen because of the adversity they have overcome in their careers, including their time at Pitt.
Conner underwent a well-documented fight with Hodgkin lymphoma before being declared cancer free in late May. In three seasons, from 2012-14, Price played just six games due to chest and back injuries. All three had to experience the uncertainty that comes with a coaching change or, in Price’s case, multiple coaching changes.
“It’s a different feeling when you know your guys think of you as a leader collectively,” Price said.
“That made me feel nice.”
Pitt opens its season Sept. 3 at Heinz Field against Villanova.
• NOTE — The Pitt-Penn State football series, which has been renewed from 2016 through 2019 and will begin Sept. 10 at Heinz Field, has been branded as the Keystone Classic presented by Peoples Gas. The two rivals haven’t played since 2000, when the Panthers defeated the Nittany Lions, 12-0, at Three Rivers Stadium.