University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Homegrown and Hard-Nosed, Pitt's Defense Has Pittsburgh in Its Blood
9/1/2026 5:00:00 PM | Football, General
Walk through Pitt's defensive depth chart this fall and one thing jumps out: a starter from the WPIAL at every level, from the line to the linebackers to the secondary.
Sean FitzSimmons anchors the defensive line. Braylan Lovelace and Cruce Brookins, both team captains, hold down linebacker and safety. Raion Strader, a Penn Hills product who spent a season at Auburn before coming home, is set to start at cornerback.
Together, they don't just fill a stat sheet. They define how Pitt's defense runs.
Ask any of them what that means and the word comes up again and again before anything else does: tough.
"I feel like it's just tough," Brookins said. "You think of Pittsburgh, you think of a tough blue-collar city. So I feel like everybody is ready to come and work. Everybody is ready to attack anything that's placed in front of us."
That identity was forged well before any of them put on a Pitt uniform.
Lovelace grew up in Leechburg, a small town that rarely sends players to Division I football. His high school made the WPIAL Class A playoffs in each of his final two seasons, including a 9-3 junior year that snapped a 27-year playoff drought and delivered the program's first postseason win since 1978.
Brookins starred at Steel Valley as a two-way threat at quarterback and defensive back, leading the Ironmen to a 12-1 record and a WPIAL Class 2A championship.
FitzSimmons closed out his career at Central Valley on a 27-game winning streak, capped by a shutout of Wyomissing Area that clinched the Warriors' second straight PIAA Class 3A title.
Strader earned First Team All-Conference honors as a junior and senior at Penn Hills before a detour to Auburn brought him back home.
Four different towns. Four different championship runs. One shared conviction about what football is supposed to feel like.
"I feel like it made me tougher," Brookins said. "Growing up where I grew up, a lot of things just you gotta grind to get what you want. I played against my bigger brother with his friends, so it definitely made me a tougher kid growing up. And I feel like it translates to now."
That same identity shows up in how the coaching staff talks about its Western Pennsylvania players, almost as if grit were something you could recruit for on a map.
Secondary coach Archie Collins has coached players from all over the country, and he's quick to point out what separates the ones who grew up an hour or less from Pitt's campus.
"I love Western PA," Collins said. "The way that you say they come with a lot of grit, they got a chip on their shoulder. Always trying to work hard, show their toughness, just being Pitt tough. I love guys from the area because of that Pitt toughness."
FitzSimmons has heard some version of that same praise since the day he arrived on campus, and the labels have started to shift as he's grown into a leadership role of his own. Defensive line coach Tim Daoust has watched that transformation up close, from a quiet freshman to a four-year anchor of the Pitt front.
"He's a tough kid, dependable, shows up every day, never too high, never too low," Daoust said. "He's always where he's supposed to be. Not a big rah-rah guy. I don't need that. It's not who he is. But as he's getting older, he's stepping out of his comfort zone and addressing people in his own way to make sure that they're on the same level as him."
For FitzSimmons, playing 20 minutes from where his football story started has never lost its meaning, even three years and 19 starts into his Pitt career. That closeness to home isn't just sentimental to him.
It goes back to Saturdays spent watching from the stands, long before he ever put on a Pitt uniform himself. His connection to Pitt football didn't start when he signed his letter of intent. It started in the bleachers.
"Growing up, my grandpa had season tickets, so I'd be at the games almost every weekend," FitzSimmons said. "And then my senior year, I basically had season tickets. I just came to every home game. Being so close, to be able to put on for my hometown, it's a dream come true."
Not every player in that defensive core grew up dreaming about Pitt specifically. Some of the Panthers' best players this season came from Florida, Georgia and everywhere in between.
But Brookins says the local roots have only strengthened the bond across the whole roster, not narrowed it. The mix of hometown ties and outside talent, he says, is exactly what makes the group work.
"I feel like that definitely creates a bigger bond," Brookins said. "Even with all the guys, I feel like we all come together as one. So it's like even the guys that's from Florida, from different places, we all come together as one for sure."
Lovelace, now entering his fourth year alongside Brookins as the anchors of Pitt's defense, felt that same convergence the moment he stepped on campus. Suddenly, all those familiar faces from Western Pennsylvania high school football were wearing the same jersey he was.
It wasn't a coincidence so much as a reunion, one that had been building since their high school days on opposite sidelines across the WPIAL.
"It's awesome," Lovelace said. "Those are things we talked about in high school, playing college football, and we're all doing it together and all playing such big roles together. "
Lovelace posted a career-high 80 tackles last season starting in the middle of Pitt's defense and will slide to an outside linebacker role in 2025. It's a more natural fit for him and should help the linebacker corp pick up right where they left off.
Brookins, meanwhile, is looking to put an injury-shortened 2025 behind him. He still managed 53 tackles and two interceptions in 10 games despite the setbacks, and a healthy season could unlock the breakout many expected a year ago.
Whatever role each of them plays, the standard doesn't change. It's the same standard they grew up playing under, on Friday nights in Leechburg and Steel Valley and Central Valley and Penn Hills, long before any of them knew they'd end up building Pitt's defense together.
"It means a lot," Brookins said. "Growing up watching Pitt. Being able to play here and just compete here, I feel like that's a great accomplishment for us all."
