Damar Hamlin stood on the Carrier Dome turf, looked to his right and saw Bricen Garner. He looked to his left and saw Therran Coleman.
“Oh, snap,” Pitt’s sophomore safety thought to himself. “This is what’s up.”
The three Pittsburgh-native defensive backs all came to play for their hometown program as part of the 2016 recruiting class, and there they were on the field at the same time at a meaningful point in a meaningful game.
Hamlin, a sophomore, said it was “definitely fun” to share the secondary with the other two, both redshirt freshmen. Garner was his high school teammate at Central Catholic, while Coleman starred in the City League at Brashear.
Another thing the trio have in common? They’re part of an inexperienced but developing corps of defensive backs.
“Definitely feel like we’re coming together a lot as a group,” Hamlin said. “We’re a young group, we got a lot of young guys minus Avonte [Maddox] and Jordan [Whitehead], but we’re coming together. I feel like we’re getting a swag to us.”
Three weeks ago at Georgia Tech was the most extensive action Hamlin has seen in college after starting his career at cornerback. The season opener was Garner’s coming-out party, one he sealed with an overtime interception. And Saturday at Syracuse was the first career start for Coleman, who played early and often as the No. 3 cornerback.
“His stock has risen,” coach Pat Narduzzi said Monday of Coleman. “I told him it was going to be important, him getting an opportunity. He won that position. It wasn’t, ‘Here you go, Therran, go be the guy.’ He won it in a competition, like we do every week.”
Coleman, who appears to have added some muscle to his 6-foot, 195-pound frame, finished with four tackles. That in particular impressed his coach after a recent practice in which Coleman was a little too nonchalant about his tackling.
“He was physical, he tackled well when he was out there,” Narduzzi said. “That was your fear. yelled at him on Thursday because he did a couple of those ‘whiz’ tackles where he pretended like he tackled the guy, but he didn't. I was like, ‘Dude, you're too young to do that. Don't be doing that on Thursday practice — thud him up.’ And that's your fear, the guy goes out there and doesn't ‘thud’ it up, but Therran did a nice job.”
Of course, this unit also has another precocious Pittsburgher waiting in the wings in freshman Steel Valley product Paris Ford. That’s another former WPIAL star Hamlin can hardly wait to play with, but it might not happen this season due to Ford missing training camp as he worked to become eligible.
After making the travel roster to Syracuse, Ford was back wearing a scout-team jersey Tuesday morning at practice, which would seem to indicate he won’t be playing for real this weekend against No. 20 N.C. State.
“He’s an athlete,” Hamlin said. “He can do it all — play offense, defense. He’s coming along, learning everything. Him coming late kind of hurt him a little bit, but he’s definitely come along well.
“I hope he plays soon, but whenever he does, I’m looking forward to it.”
Brian Batko: bbatko@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrianBatko.
First Published: October 11, 2017, 10:30 a.m.
