Jeremiah Marcelin spent last season on the sideline, but the buzz around him at Pitt never really went away.
A year ago, the second-year linebacker was being talked up as a player ready to take a major leap for the Panthers’ defense. He was supposed to be part of the first-team group and line up with Rasheem Biles, Kyle Louis and Braylan Lovelace. Instead, a shoulder injury last August wiped out his entire 2025 season and left Pitt thinner at linebacker than it wanted to be.
Still, Marcelin says the year away from the field wasn’t empty.
"It was just being a student of the game," the third year linebacker said of what he experienced in 2025 on the sideline. "Just taking everything in from an offensive standpoint and what the offense is doing and technically from a defense's standpoint: how are we playing, what can we get better at and what are we good at?"
That sideline education changed how he watches football. Marcelin said he paid close attention to how opposing offenses attacked Pitt, and that perspective has carried into training camp as he looks to turn those lessons into production this season.
Even without game reps, the confidence around Marcelin has stayed strong. He is the leading candidate to start at middle linebacker, and Pitt’s staff sounds comfortable with that outlook.
"He's going to be a tremendous player here and he's a really exciting one because he's super smart," Pitt linebackers coach Joe Bowen said in an interview during Pitt's media day last week. "You can have football level-401 conversations with him every single day and the game makes sense to him. He can he can self correct and he can come off the sideline and know what happened to him and be able to not make the same mistakes twice."
That kind of trust comes from more than just brains. Marcelin has shown the kind of communication and leadership traits that fit the middle linebacker spot, and he said that side of his game is ready to come back into focus.
"It's something I've always had and now it's just the ability to bring it out again," Marcelin said of getting an opportunity to use his voice this season.
Bowen has also been struck by how Marcelin handles his work day to day, especially in a room where competition for snaps is real.
"He is an incredibly diligent young man with his process," Bowen said of his middle linebacker. "He has a pro-level process with how he approaches every single day, how he comes into the building, how he takes great notes, how he brings other people along, the type of teammate he is, how much he wants the linebacker room to be a tight-knit group and he's just matured so much, in my opinion, with ability to sustain."
For Marcelin, the missed season became a chance to sharpen his film study and better understand how offenses try to attack Pitt.
"I've been preaching this for a while, but I truly believe just in the film study," Marcelin said of what he gained from 2025. "Everybody takes stuff from everybody. Everybody kind of tries to do it their own way in terms of OCs and stuff, so just in terms of being able to watch the offense's standpoint game after game and how guys are trying to play our defense."
Bowen hasn’t seen Marcelin in a live game yet, but even in less than a year around him, he believes the linebacker is on track for a strong season.
"I think that injury taught him a lot about himself and I think you'll see even improved version of him this upcoming season," Bowen explained. "I think there's a reason why people were high on him and they'll see that this fall."