Watch: Pitt Freshman QB Throws Dime

Just minutes before Coach Lamar’s comments on Heintschel, Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi also weighed in on the rookie quarterback. 

“(Heintschel is) a good football player,” Narduzzi said. “I mean, he's just got a little swagger to him, and he threw the ball well, had a nice RPO.”

In the final press conference prior to the spring game, offensive coordinator Kade Bell went into more detail on the Ohio product. 

“Mason, for a young guy, he's very mature,” Bell said on April 10, available on YouTube. “He showed up from Day One like a pro. I mean, I can't keep him out of my office. That's a good thing, though, for a young guy. 

“He's not coming here thinking that he's going to redshirt. Does that make sense? And when you got a young guy like that, man, it makes everybody better, because it's like I've got to even do more because if he's a freshman, doing that...that's the expectation. 

“It's not doing the bare minimum at quarterback. I tell our kids, I tell them all the time in that room, it's not just watching practice one day or watching the next day. Are you up here at the office? Are you meeting with the receivers? Are you throwing after practice? Right? 

“We're not here just to doing the bare minimum at quarterback, right? If you want to be a great quarterback and you want to take your game to another level, you've got to be the hardest working guy in the room, in the building, really. So, I'm trying to get that expectation, and getting them to understand that, that's been big this spring.”