Hayes follows Baldonado's lead for Pitt's premier edge rushers

Dayon Hayes looks like he could be the next big thing on Pitt's defensive line. The Panthers completed their eighth spring practice for the 2022 season Thursday at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, and Hayes was one of the players who looked to be the most improved.

Pitt has had one of the best defensive fronts in college football over the past few years under defensive line coach Charlie Partridge. The Panthers finished third in rushing defense in 2020 and sixth in 2021, while finishing with the most sacks in the country in 2020 and the second-most in 2021.

Hayes, a junior from Pittsburgh who played at Westinghouse, finished last season with two sacks and 7.5 tackles for loss last season. He came on strong at the end of the season with six tackles for loss and two sacks coming in the last three games of the season.

"I'm starting to get it now," Hayes said Thursday. "I'm feeling like I'm becoming a vet and understanding the defense while making plays. My first year, I just thought I had to change everything (about myself). This year, I'm just taking time and repetition and I feel great."

As a freshman, Hayes started his Pitt career with a bang with two sacks against Austin Peay in Pitt's season opener, but wasn't a factor for the rest of the season. As his sophomore season played out, Hayes was learning what it took to be a consistent player from his diet, to his workout regimen, to how he needed view his opportunities for playing time.

"I've been focusing on my body," Hayes said about how he's changed this offseason.. "I was a vegan, but I had to scratch that off. I wasn't getting enough protein. My mindset in my first year was working to get out of the building. This year, I'm getting all I can from my reps. I'm working to do everything right and do all my sets. I was a vegan for about five months. I took it through the last two games of last season, but when I would go to my grandma's she would make steak, and it was too hard. Coach Donta (Green) at Westinghouse put me onto trying to be a vegan, but I've been on and off when I've tried to gain weight."

What's impressive about Hayes' development is that how open he is about how his approach to football in previous years was wrong, and how he needed to change from it to become a better player. 

"My mindset was messed up in the beginning," Hayes said. "I was counting my plays and not making my plays count. Over the last five games, I told myself to make my plays count when I'm in."

Pitt's defensive line coach, Charlie Partridge, has been open about Hayes' development as a player and a student-athlete over the past year. Last year he spoke several times about Haye's improvement in skill and attention to detail. This year, he's excited to see how Hayes puts it all together.

"What's fun for me is he's putting together effort, technique and knowledge," Partridge said of Hayes. "When you combine those three things as a defensive lineman, you have a high chance of success. He's shown a lot more signs of combining all three things and he's really elevated his game."

Hayes' appreciation of Partridge's coaching oversight is obvious when watching his reverence in practice for his coach and how he talks about him after practice.

"He's never changed, not one bit," Hayes said of Partridge. "He stayed the same and has been on me the same way. We've had our ups and downs, but he's real. I love that coach."

Pat Narduzzi also appreciates Hayes' improvement in this spring camp, even if he doesn't know how to practice at the pace demanded in certain sessions. During fully padded spring practices, Pitt will have its players operate on a "thud" method of playing where players are allowed to make contact, but aren't to try to bring any players down to the ground with tackles or harder hits.

That's a method done to limit injury risk for players, but it's unfamiliar to Hayes from his high school practices.

"Dayon is a world ahead of where he was at last season," Narduzzi said. "He had a play yesterday where he caused a one-on-one scrap. "Him and Daniel Carter went at it, but it's all part of the education. Probably lasted about 15 seconds."

Hayes has had to adjust to the expectations of a Division I college football athlete, and the players who've helped him the most in previous years are defensive ends Patrick Jones and Rashad Weaver.

"It was really Pat (Patrick Jones) and Weave (Rashad Weaver)," Hayes said as part of his motivation to improve. "When they were here, I would really look up to Pat. I would just be with him. But sometimes he would be in there working early, and I wasn't trying to do that. But then I realized that if I put the time in now to get here early, on the back end I'll be in this game as long as I want."

But these days, it's Habakkuk Baldonado, the defensive end who led Pitt with nine sacks last season, who leads and sets the tone for Hayes. 

"Honestly, Haba has been like Pat to me," Hayes said of Baldonado. "He's shown me the ropes, stuff I don't see and he's helped my game. He's helped all of us develop as defensive ends. He's a real guy. We've got real role models like him, Des (Deslin Alexandre) and John (Morgan.)"

Baldonado is a player who's grown plenty in Pitt's program. As a sophomore, he suffered a season-ending injury early in the season, but came back strong as a leader for Pitt's 2021 ACC Championship team.

"The fun thing is he comes to me after practice with cutups of himself," Partridge said of Baldonado. "He looks at things that put together to study himself. There were somewhere around half a dozen sacks last year where he was an inch away and he's looking to add those 5-6 extra sacks to his resume this season. He's at the point in his game where he's fighting for every extra inch."

Baldonado's leadership for the group has set the tone for the defensive line that also includes Calijah Kancey, who made First Team All-Pro last season. Kancey was sneaking up behind the reporters asking Hayes question Thursday, making it hard for Hayes to keep a straight face as we asked questions.

"We're all close," Hayes said of the defensive line. "We keep hanging around each other. We go out to places together, we shop together, we do everything together. We're close, that's why I know we're going to win it all next year."

If Hayes can become a significant contributor to a defensive front that's bringing back every player that was part of last year's group that ranked among the nation's best in run defense and sacks, it can only mean the group will become even more dangerous for opponents in 2022.

• Quarterback Davis Beville announced his decision to enter the Transfer Portal Thursday afternoon. Beville was a four-star recruit who had three years with the program but couldn't get past being the team's third string quarterback. He did play in the Peach Bowl when Kenny Pickett opted out of playing and Nick Patti suffered a broken collarbone. During that game he completed 14 of 18 passes for 149 yards, a touchdown and an interception while getting sacked five times for a quarterback rating of 31.7.

Beville might have had a shot to compete with Patti for the starting quarterback spot, but Kedon Slovis' transfer to Pitt put him in the same position as fighting for a the third-string quarterback for the team in his fourth year with the program.