Florida 2024 QB Nick Pinto set for breakout season
Written by Ryan Wright
Twitter: @RyanWrightRNG
NORT PORT, Fla. – Every year since college football recruiting began, and on every high school football team in the country, there are players like Nick Pinto preparing for a big senior year. Pinto (6-2, 185) split snaps at North Port High School last fall following a late-summer transfer. Earning the starting QB job for the Bobcats, Pinto is set for that breakout season.
Pinto detailed his focus for the 2023 schedule.
“I split time last year, I was still learning the offense,” Pinto said. “I transferred in two weeks before the season. This year, I am coming in as the true starter. This year, I am ready to show what I can do and who I am as a player.
“My focus is to develop myself to be the best I can be and help my school win as many games as we can; that’s the most important thing, helping the program you are at and winning games. I have a great supporting cast around me; that really helps as a quarterback to have this great group.”
The Bobcats offense was explained.
“We are run-heavy,” Pinto stated. “We run a lot of Wing-T to have the defense focus on the run and then we use the run to develop the pass. In the offense, we use Spread off of the run. We are a team that will run it down a team’s throat, and once we’ve asserted ourselves with the run, we use that to set up our passing game over the top.”
Pinto shared his play style in the pocket, “I’m more of a pocket passer with my play style. My strength is dropping back and reading the field. I have been playing quarterback now for 10 years if not longer; I have the experience of knowing what a defense is doing.
“I am able to read the field, knowing what the defense is doing and knowing what will come open in pre-snap. I am a smart quarterback; I don’t make mistakes. I haven’t thrown a high school interception yet. That’s been my No. 1 strength, not turning the ball over, knowing what the defense is doing, and putting the ball where it needs to be.”
Former Florida State quarterback Adrian McPherson has helped Pinto develop this offseason.
“I have been working with Ri5e [sic] Sports, which is led by coach Adrian McPherson,” Pinto said. “I’ve been working a lot on my mechanics – exploding, rotating, and developing more ball velocity. I’ve been fine-tuning everything to be the best quarterback I can be.”
The extra time on the field allowed Pinto to showcase his skills this summer at college camps.
“I did a lot of college camps this summer,” Pinto stated. “First, I went on a bus tour with Ri5e; we hit Mercer, went up to USC (South Carolina), Coastal Carolina, came back around to UAB, Alabama, Ole Miss, and then up to Arkansas State. I came home practicing with the team for a week, and then I took off for UNH (New Hampshire) for a week for one of their camps.”
It took a couple of camps to find his flow, but once he did, he shined for former NFL QB Trent Dilfer and SEC squads.
“I struggled on the first half of that bus tour; I wasn’t really finding my groove,” Pinto shared. “When I got to UAB, something just clicked. It was in that second half of the bus tour – UAB, Alabama, and Ole Miss; those three camps in a row I did really well. I was putting everything where it needed to be; I was putting the ball well, accurately, and far.”
The bus tour paid off with teams like UAB, Ole Miss, and UNH showing interest ahead of Pinto’s last run with the Bobcats.