Defeats from long ago still weigh on Pitt’s Phil Jurkovec as he carries ‘grit, moxy’ into his final collegiate season
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Through two transfer decisions, three schools, a few injuries and eight years of ups and downs, Phil Jurkovec said he has no regrets.
Actually, maybe a few.
But they aren’t what you think.
When a reporter asked what 23-year-old Phil Jurkovec would tell his 16-year-old self, Pitt’s quarterback was quick with an answer that had nothing to do with matriculating to Notre Dame after graduating from Pine-Richland in 2018.
• “Beat Reading in the state championship in basketball.”
• “Don’t let Troy Fisher run a QB sneak whenever he was at Central (Catholic) to beat us.”
Funny, but the PIAA title-game loss occurred during his junior year of high school in his secondary sport. The football regret was a regular-season game when he was sophomore at Pine-Richland — nearly eight years ago.
Perhaps he was speaking partially in jest, but the responses illustrate Jurkovec’s optimistic outlook as he embarks on his sixth — and final — college season. The past is past. It’s time for a new chapter at Pitt.
“I don’t know. I could have flamed out how college has gone for me,” said Jurkovec, who left Notre Dame after two seasons and was injured during parts of his three years at Boston College. “But I don’t regret my decision. I think I’m fortunate for the way it played out.”
He said he still has something to prove, not unlike most players preparing for the 2023 college football season.
“I think you always have something to prove, but I’ve shown that I can play. But, really, for me, it’s a personal thing. I want to be able to see how good I can be, and this year gives me the opportunity.”
Former Pine-Richland coach Eric Kasperowicz (now at Mars) said he’s not surprised that two defeats from years ago still matter to Jurkovec.
“Everybody asks,” Kasperowicz said, “‘What can you say about Phil as a quarterback, as a player?’ The first two things that come out of my mouth are he’s such a competitor, refuses to lose in everything he does. That kind of random quarterback sneak that went for 20-some yards and a touchdown to beat us, that’s something that probably weighed on his shoulders for a long time. No doubt.”
That drive to win helped Jurkovec take a leadership role at Pine-Richland, Kasperowicz said.
“In the weight room, always the first one in, last one to leave,” he said. “Never taking reps off. Young kids and teammates look to him (and say), ‘If the quarterback’s doing it, we have to do it.’
“It’s one player, sure, but that one player, he’s able to bring his teammates and put them on his shoulders and get them to believe the same thing.”
When Jurkovec transferred to Boston College in 2020, Kasperowicz visited practice one day. There, he met with Frank Cignetti Jr., the offensive coordinator who now holds the same position at Pitt.
“I had never been with (Jurkovec) on the field,” said Cignetti, whose brother, Curt, recruited and coached Kasperowicz at Pitt in the 1990s. “I wanted to spend time with Eric to get to know Phil better. Eric and Phil had a lot of success together, and I wanted to know, ‘What did you do?’ You want to use the quarterback’s strengths.
“I can remember Eric said to me, ‘Wait until you see this guy on game day because he is different.’
“Our first game was Duke. We really didn’t know what we had yet. After that game (Jurkovec threw for 300 yards in a 26-6 victory), we knew what we had. We had a guy that, man, when the lights turned on and he stepped across that white line, he was different.” (Cignetti put special emphasis on that last word). You can see why he was a state champion (in 2017). He’s a special person. He’s a special athlete.”
Jurkovec agrees he’s different on game day, but he added, “I don’t want to be labeled just a gamer, because I do put in the work. I don’t just show up on game day and try to make something happen.”
Kasperowicz said Jurkovec can make the “wow” plays or the routine things quarterbacks need to do.
“You’re going to get the magical, make seven people miss, breaks four tackles and throws it 40 yards downfield, just because he’s that type of athlete. Superman.”
Jurkovec said transferring from BC to Pitt was partially triggered by a desire to play his final season close to home. But he said Cignetti’s presence as his play-caller and quarterback coach “was probably the key to it all.”
“Having played in his offense and the level of trust I have in him,” Jurkovec said. “All the quarterbacks who’ve played under him would say that. He treats everybody fairly. He’s real with you. He also knows a ton of football.”
Cignetti said a good relationship with his quarterbacks is “always an advantage.”
“He understands the system. He knows what it looks like through all the reps that he’s had. You can just see it through the offseason program, the summer and practice that we are so much further ahead than we were last season just because we’re all more experienced in what we’re doing together.”
A good quarterback/OC relationship, mixed with Jurkovec’s athleticism on a 6-foot-5, nearly 250-pound frame, might serve Pitt well this season.
“What a tremendous leader, competitor, one of the most competitive kids I have ever been around,” Cignetti said. “He is tough. He has grit. He has moxie. He has all those attributes that you can’t coach.”