NW, Pitt still lead for Mattes

Offensive and defensive tackle Kurt Mattes has already taken an official visit to Northwestern, and he enjoyed it enough to put the Wildcats at the top of his list along with Pitt.

The 6-foot-6, 265-pound two-way lineman from Plymouth (Pa.) Wyoming Valley West is still considering several other schools, but Pitt and Northwestern are clearly the two to beat.

"I really enjoyed myself when I was at Northwestern a little less than a month ago," he said. "I had a great time and could definitely see myself happy there, playing on a good team and getting a good education. Pitt is closer to home, and I really like all I know about them.

"I'm still looking at other schools, mostly in the Big East and Big Ten. Schools like Indiana, Syracuse and some others are still really recruiting me hard and would like to me to go on board with them. I don't have a timeframe, so I'll wait a while to make a decision."

Mattes' squad was eliminated from the state playoffs recently, but all was not bad.

"It was probably one of my best individual performances that I've ever had," he said. "I played really well, and we had a chance to win. The final score was 28-23, so it's really tough to take a loss like that. It's tough to take any loss, but we should have won. We had a solid season though, so it was a good year overall."