Senior Bowl QB Kenny Pickett’s success invites the question: What if he’d stayed committed to Temple?

MOBILE, Ala. — At various points in the last few years, Kenny Pickett’s play from the other side of Pennsylvania would ignite discussions in Temple football group chats.

The text threads, which included former player-personnel staffers from Matt Rhule’s head-coaching tenure, could go one of two ways when the conversation shifted to the University of Pittsburgh quarterback while he broke most of the Panthers’ passing records as a four-year starter.

Sometimes they’d express vindication; the player they’d recruited from Ocean Township (N.J.) High School, who some thought had an NFL future, was on his way to becoming exactly what they’d anticipated.

Other times, they’d bemoan the sad truth: He’d gotten away and reached that potential elsewhere.

“It’s somewhat fulfilling, right?” said Mike Wallace, one of the team’s recruiting directors at the time. “Because it’s like, ‘Yeah, we were right. He was exactly what we thought he was.’ The unfulfilling part is we just know what a kid like that would have done for Temple.”

Pickett led the Panthers to an 11-3 record last year, finished third in Heisman Trophy voting, and became one of the top quarterbacks in the draft class. Rhule and a few Temple holdovers have gotten another up-close look at Pickett this week at the Senior Bowl, where he native is trying to solidify his case to be the first signal caller drafted in April.

Before Pickett was Pittsburgh-bound, though, he verbally committed to Temple in the spring of 2015 after the Owls’ staff expressed early interest in him.

“We were so high on the kid, to the point where we’d say he was a program-changer,” Wallace said. “We thought he could carry a program to a point where we could be perennial top-25.”

The following spring, Pickett said he’d garnered interest from a handful of new, bigger schools. Pitt was among the new crop of schools he wanted to visit, so he decommitted from Temple.

“I really wanted to see the other schools that I was getting recruited by,” Pickett said before Wednesday’s Senior Bowl practice. “I didn’t think it was right to be seeing other schools while committed to one. Each party kind of knew what was going to happen at the end of the day, I think.

“It was a great time for Temple football. I’m really close to Philly, it’s like an hour-and-15 minutes from my house. They were trending upward. I knew bigger schools would be calling, and [Rhule] ended up leaving.”

Pickett’s decision to go elsewhere is the source of a handful of “what if” scenarios for both Wallace and Temple. The Owls were looking for the quarterback to replace P.J. Walker and thought Pickett would help keep them on an upward trajectory.

“He was the gem of the class,” Wallace said. “We thought that he and Jadan Blue would be a dynamic duo for a long time. He had everything you would think of for an NFL player. He had the athleticism, the personality, where he just fits with guys, and guys want to be around him.”

Temple went 15-11 in the two seasons after Rhule’s departure but has gone 12-20 since then. By comparison, Pickett led Pittsburgh to the Peach Bowl as a senior and was 32-17 as the starter. He threw for a program-record 12,303 yards and 81 touchdowns.

Even with Rhule leaving for Baylor and eventually becoming the Carolina Panthers’ head coach during the span of Pickett’s college career, Wallace said Temple’s murky football situation could have been much clearer had the team retained Pickett in the 2017 recruiting class.

“It’s almost like scary to think about,” Wallace said. “To think what they did over the past couple of years with different [quarterbacks] but nobody really solid, if you solidify that spot with a guy like Kenny, with the receivers they had on the outside and everything else, that would have been program-changing. Who knows, maybe Temple may be knocking on the door of the Big 12 at that point?”

Pickett’s and Rhule’s paths crossed again in Mobile. The 23-year-old confirmed that he’d met with quarterback-needy Carolina during a Wednesday news conference, and the Panthers have been one of several teams watching quarterback reps closely all week.

Pickett’s play has been steady on the field, but there’s at least one area of concern from the testing portion of the Senior Bowl this week. He didn’t have his hands measured on Monday, citing his double-jointed thumbs and the odd direction they point as the reason. Still, Pickett often wears gloves on both hands and there are questions about his ability to handle the transition to the slightly bigger NFL ball.

“I think that’s like the No. 1 thing for quarterbacks in the draft process you hear every year is hand size,” Pickett said. “The good news is I’ve played in Pittsburgh. Anyone who’s been to Pittsburgh knows it’s not the nicest place to play in October, November. I have experience playing in tough weather.”

Pickett said he’ll have his hand measured at the NFL Scouting Combine once he has had more time working on the mobility to flatten his hand on the measurement tool there.

There’s a chance he won’t have to go far after the draft. The Pittsburgh Steelers, looking for Ben Roethlisberger’s replacement, has shown interest in Pickett early in the draft process.

Although he grew up an Eagles fan, Pickett said playing for the Steelers would be “unbelievable.”

“Pittsburgh is really my second home,” he said. “That’d be kind of a dream. It started once I got recruited to Pitt and maybe at the next level, so we’ll see what happens.”