While you would think it would be a nice quiet summer down in West Virginia for new head coach Neal Brown, that has not been anywhere close to being the case. Especially now as he’s seen both of the Mountaineers’ starting safeties enter the NCAA Transfer Portal in as many days.
Per 247Sports, Derrek Pitts has joined teammate and fellow safety Kenny Robinson in the portal and is almost assuredly headed out of Morgantown in short order.
Set to be a junior in 2019, Pitts was a regular in the WVU secondary since arriving as a four-star recruit and started two games last year, notably blocking a field goal that he returned for a touchdown against Iowa State. He reportedly had a good spring practice and emerged as one of the better players on defense but that’s all a moot point now with his name in the portal.
A Charleston, West Virginia native, Pitts originally committed to Penn State before flipping to the nearby Mountaineers and enrolling early back in 2017. It remains to be seen where the safety will eventually wind up but it will be interesting to see if Houston and former head coach Dana Holgorsen are among the programs that also get involved in re-recruiting the safety.
Needless to say, WVU has gone from feeling good about their secondary to having a gaping hole on the backend after just two days in early June. Pitts and Robinson combined for 104 tackles and five picks so that’s a lot production that Brown and company will need to replace before the team’s opener against James Madison in late August.