The 3-2-1 Column: Dumpster fires, probation, defense and more

In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're talking about Jeff Capel's dumpster fire, Pitt's probation, the 2020 and 2021 defenses and more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Jeff Capel was right (again) (again)
Yeah, it’s a repeat from last week, but guess what? Jeff Capel was right.

Again.

This latest instance came on Tuesday night after Pitt got beat by 15 at Florida State. Losing to the Seminoles, who are a top-10 team, wasn’t a surprise; even though the Panthers pulled off a win over FSU in the season opener at the Petersen Events Center, I don’t think many expected them to come out of Tallahassee with a win.

Similarly, I’m not sure anyone expected to hear Jeff Capel use the term “dumpster fire” this week, but here we are.

To wit:

“It was a dumpster fire that I took over.”

That quote certainly got the headlines - I made it a headline - and I don’t think anyone would disagree that Capel was right about that. He took over a program that had just finished a season which will live in Pitt lore for its infamy: like the 72-0 Ohio State football game from 1996, 0-18 will be (and has already become) shorthand for the lowest of lows.

(Ed. note: We also know now that Capel inherited a team that was on the verge of getting hit with NCAA sanctions; more on that in a minute.)

That’s what Capel inherited, and the flames only grew as the roster he inherited gradually turned over almost entirely. The team that went 0-18 had nine scholarship players with at least two years of eligibility remaining (meaning they should be on the current team); only three of them are still at Pitt - Terrell Brown, Kene Chukwuka and Samson George - and just one of them actually plays.

The program needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. But that’s a process, and that’s why I think it’s important to go beyond the “dumpster fire” soundbite and look at Capel’s whole quote, because he was right about more than just the state of the program two years ago.

“We need time. I’ve been here for a little bit over a year. We need time to recruit and then we have to win some recruiting battles. It’s gonna happen, but it’s not gonna happen right away. Maybe because of the start we got off to, people thought this is gonna happen, like, quick. It’s not quick. It was a dumpster fire that I took over. And we’ve done a really good job. These guys have fought and we’ve put ourselves in a position where we’ve won more games than we did last year. We’ve won more conference games. There’s an energy about our basketball program right now. But it’s not gonna happen overnight. So we have to be able to recruit. We have three guys that we’re excited about coming in. We have a kid sitting out, I think, that’s really, really good. So if we can keep the core together along with some of the other guys we have, then we’ll get quality depth. But we do not have it right now; there’s nothing we can do about that right now.”

I think the full quote gives a little more context past the “dumpster fire” comment. It’s not that I think Capel broke any news for most people who have been following Pitt hoops for some time; rather, I think it was important context for his view on the state of things.

Because rebuilding a basketball program is a process. It’s a shorter process than rebuilding a football program, since one or two key guys can really turn things around. But at the same time, it’s a much bigger challenge to rebuild a program like Pitt than it is to rebuild a blue blood.

We have all talked about Capel’s prowess as a recruiter, and I still believe he is very good at that part of the job, but reality is still reality. 0-18 is still 0-18, and Pitt isn’t too far removed from that ignominious record (even if I have wrestled with the matter of how long that shadow should be cast). And while everyone got excited about those ACC wins last season - seeing as how they broke the conference losing streak - the reality was, Pitt went 3-15 in the ACC. Three wins isn’t opening anyone’s eyes.

Rebuilds do take time, and maybe at a school like Pitt, they take a little longer. But like Capel said, we’re talking about the second year of a rebuild. If you look at the overall picture, I think it’s pretty promising:

0-18 -> 3-15 -> 6 10 (with four games to play)

That’s progress.

The core is still the key
If that progress is going to continue, it will have to mean even more wins next season. But while Capel spoke optimistically about the incoming freshmen - John Hugley, Noah Collier and Max Amadasun make up the list for now - and the addition of Ithiel Horton, who is sitting out due to transferring, there’s a reality underneath all of it:

Pitt’s improvement next season is still going to depend a whole lot on Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens.

It might depend entirely on those guys, actually.

Johnson and McGowens are the core. They are the top guards on a roster that doesn’t have many. And even when Horton joins the group as an eligible option, Pitt’s not going to have some overwhelming depth in the back court. Even if the Panthers land Femi Odukale, a point guard who is visiting this weekend, it would still not create enough guard depth to move Johnson and McGowens out of key roles.

So those two have to get better.

News flash on that one, right?

Personally, I don't think the sophomore duo has regressed this season. Rather, I think they just haven’t gotten any better as sophomores than they were as freshmen. A year ago, everyone was willing to take anything they could get from Johnson and McGowens because they were the new guys, the freshmen who were going to lead the program to great heights and they showed that promise with the way they played.

The problem is, in order for the program to keep moving forward, Johnson and McGowens had to get better. And they haven’t.

Instead, it has been the development of Au’Diese Toney (who actually has improved from his freshman year) and the emergence of Justin Champagnie that has largely fueled this season’s success. Johnson and McGowens have been part of it, too, of course, but their contributions to the team’s wins in 2019-20 have been largely what they were in 2018-19.

Pitt needs more from those two and it needs both of them to improve. When Toney and Champagnie are playing well, the ceiling for the team goes up considerably - if Johnson and McGowens can elevate their own games.

So as we look ahead and project better days for Pitt in the coming seasons, we’re inevitably going to be relying on the same expectations we had coming into this season: the expectations that Pitt’s top guards will take a step forward.

If they do, 2020-21 really can be a big year for Pitt. If they don’t, then we might all still be looking for signs of progress.

Leaving a legacy
We often talk about how 2020 is an important season for Pat Narduzzi, and that’s certainly true - so true, in fact, that we’ll continue to talk about it and emphasize it and probably ask him about it until (and after) he gets annoyed with the question.

But he’s not the only one staring down a pretty significant season.

Kenny Pickett is, too.

Believe it or not, Pickett will be a senior in the fall. I know you already know that, but it’s still kind of shocking to me when, every now and then, I find myself reminded of the fact that he has just one year of eligibility remaining.

And that makes 2020 really big for Pickett. I would go so far as to call it a make-or-break season for his career, and while many have put that designation on 2020 for Narduzzi, I would say it’s even more so for Pickett. Because while I am 99% certain Narduzzi will be at Pitt in 2021 and have additional chances to write his legacy, Pickett doesn’t have the same kind of future.

2020 is it for him.

Okay, quick caveat: maybe Pitt convinces the NCAA to give Pickett another year like they convinced the NCAA to give Damar Hamlin another year. Maybe. I don’t know if that will happen, just like I don’t know if any other circumstances would arise to make 2020 a redshirt year for Pickett. But for now, we’ll talk about him with the assumption that 2020 will be his last season in a Pitt uniform.

And with that in mind, Pickett has to be looking at 2020 as the season when he can decide what his legacy at Pitt will be. Right now, it’s just okay. He is 15-12 overall as a starter and 11-6 in the ACC (plus one more loss in the ACC Championship Game against Clemson). He has thrown for 5,576 yards, 26 touchdowns and 16 interceptions in 27 career starts - an average of 206 yards and less than one touchdown per game.

Pickett has been the starting quarterback for some good wins in the last three seasons - upsetting Miami at home in 2017, beating Wake Forest in 2018 to clinch the Coastal Division, knocking off UCF at Heinz Field last season, to name three. And he has also been at the helm for some brutal losses, like the Penn State, North Carolina, UCF and Stanford games in 2018 or last year’s debacles against Miami and Boston College.

Changing offensive coordinators hasn’t helped, but the word that comes to mind when looking at all of those stats and records is: “average.” Some good, some bad, sometimes really good and sometimes offset by really bad. The team’s performance doesn’t all fall on him, but a lot of it does because he’s the quarterback. And with him at quarterback, Pitt has been three games better than .500.

That’s not great.

So this is a pretty crucial season for Pickett and his legacy at Pitt. Barring something unforeseen, he will finish his career certainly among the top five passers in school history; with 3,000 yards in 2020, he’ll get into the top three and realistically has a shot at finishing No. 2 ahead of Dan Marino.

But getting your name into the record books doesn’t guarantee a legacy. Tino Sunseri is No. 3 on Pitt's all-time career passing yards list right now; Pickett has a chance to finish his career on a higher note than Sunseri did if he can add a successful senior season to the stats.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

How top-heavy is Pitt’s defense?
I know we’ve all been marveling at Pitt’s defense this offseason, particularly in light of the players who decided to return for another year. But let’s take another look at what’s coming back, what they have to replace and how good this unit should be.

Really, it’s probably easier to look at where Pitt has openings on defense, because there aren’t many spots to fill. There’s a defensive tackle job; Amir Watts was there last year. There are a couple linebacker jobs; Saleem Brightwell and Kylan Johnson are done after being the primary starters at middle and Money linebacker, respectively.

And that’s kind of it. Dane Jackson is gone so they’ll have to fill a spot at cornerback, but Jason Pinnock and Damarri Mathis both saw a ton of action last season, so the replacements seem to be already on the roster.

Actually, you could say that about every open spot on the defense. I’m guessing Devin Danielson will get a shot to start at defensive tackle; he played a lot last season. At middle linebacker, I would probably bet on Chase Pine getting the job. As for Money linebacker, it would make sense to use Cam Bright or Phil Campbell, since those guys both played quite a bit at outside linebacker in 2019, and I think Campbell played both outside spots so it would be a natural fit.

So Pitt really only has about three spots to fill and a bunch of players with experience ready to step in and fill them. And that doesn’t even count Rashad Weaver and Keyshon Camp - two guys with starting experience who were expected to be key contributors in 2019 before they suffered season-ending injuries.

Throw Weaver and Camp in with all the returning starters and top reserves at defensive end and defensive tackle and you’ve got six or seven players for four starting jobs. That should make it pretty easy to line up a solid four-man rotation at end and another one at tackle.

Heck, Charlie Partridge could even go five-deep at end and tackle if he wanted to, because Habakkuk Baldonado and John Morgan have earned playing time at end, just like Tyler Bentley and David Green have at tackle.

That’s like 10 guys who can step on the field and play defensive line for Pitt this season.

Not every position group is quite as deep as that one. In fact, none of the other position groups are as deep as the line. But front to back, this defense is really impressive across the two-deep. They’ll have to tap some inexperienced players for reserve spots at linebacker and in the secondary, but the top line in the back seven is made up of really good players with a lot of experience.

Why is everyone so optimistic about Pitt’s defense in 2020? Because a very talented group returns almost everyone, and in the spots where they don’t have returning starters, there are good, experienced players ready to step in.

That’s a good recipe.

What’s the downside of being so top-heavy?
Jeff Capel Was Right (the football edition)

Yes, we’re about to take a really positive situation and look at the downside, because if there’s a downside to that talented defense, it’s this:

Rashad Weaver, Keyshon Camp, Patrick Jones, Chase Pine, Phil Campbell, Damarri Mathis, Jason Pinnock and Damar Hamlin will all be playing their final year of eligibility in 2020. Throw in some early departures for the NFL Draft - Jaylen Twyman and Paris Ford, most likely - and the promising talent and depth of 2020’s defense turns into a whole bunch of open spots in 2021.

I know, I know: why be a downer about this now? What good does it serve in February 2020 to sit around worrying about how all of those players won’t be back in 2021? Why don’t we get through the 2020 season before we start stressing over how the staff will fill 10 open jobs two years from now?

Those are all valid questions.

But I can’t help it. I start thinking about those players Pitt will have on defense and the theme just appears organically:

Weaver - redshirt senior. Camp - redshirt senior. Jones - redshirt senior. Pine - redshirt senior. Campbell - redshirt senior. Mathis - senior. Pinnock - senior. Hamlin - redshirt senior.

It’s tough to consider those guys and their roles on this defense without inevitably thinking about how they only have one year left. The only players with eligibility beyond this season in the current projected starting lineup - as projected by me, at least - are Deslin Alexandre and Cam Bright. There are still a bunch of young defensive linemen, but the rest of the starting lineup in 2021 is going to be filled out by guys who, if they have any real experience heading into that season, will have gained it in 2020.

So when we get to 2021, guys like Wendell Davis and SirVocea Dennis and Brandon George and Leslie Smith and the incoming freshmen at linebacker will be on the clock. AJ Woods and Judson Tallandier and Marquis Williams and the freshman corners will be, too. And Erick Hallett and Brandon Hill better be ready to play, because I’m assuming - as most will - that 2020 will be Paris Ford’s last year at Pitt.

Again, there’s no sense in fretting over the depth in 2021 when the 2020 season is still six months away. But maybe the biggest thing the looming departures do is to add even more pressure to the next 12 games:

You better win a bunch of them, because you’re going to be rebuilding half your team when the season is over.

ONE PREDICTION

There won’t be much impact from the NCAA
Big news this week. Big, big news. The NCAA dropped the hammer on Pitt, putting the Athletic Department - or the Department of Athletics, as it were - on probation for three years due to some pretty, pretty serious transgressions.

Okay.

I’m going to try not to be too sarcastic in this column. If you want the sarcasm, the reaction video I live-streamed Thursday afternoon is dripping with it, so go there:

But seriously, folks, this whole deal is pretty amusing to me. I’m sure Pat Narduzzi and Jeff Capel and Heather Lyke and the people who work in Pitt’s compliance department don’t find it amusing, but I can’t help it. To call these violations “minor” is overstating it, and even “Level II” sounds way too critical for what Pitt did; maybe “Level 11” would make more sense.

Letting non-coaches perform coaching duties? If that’s the worst thing you’re doing, then you’re not doing much bad.

That’s what cracked me up about some of the insta-jokes and people saying “Kevin Stallings cheated and still went 0-18 in the ACC.” This isn’t cheating. This is breaking rules, but it’s not cheating and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a direct and tangible impact on the performance of the teams in that span.

A quality control coach threw footballs and held up play cards for the scout team? That’s Narduzzi’s big offense?

I don’t mean to be dismissive, but that sure seems like a whole lot of nothing. And this isn’t about Pitt; I would say the same thing about any school that gets probation for something like that. It’s just silly.

But to get back to the prediction part of the column, my prediction is an obvious one. I’m saying that there won’t be much impact from this whole (not very) sordid affair. I guess that’s pretty obvious, since it’s right there in the NCAA’s announcement. They laid out the penalties, and anybody can look to see that there’s not much in the way of lasting punishment.

Three years of probation is no problem as long as you stay clean, which shouldn’t be a problem. There’s a fine, but it doesn’t seem too excessive. Narduzzi will have to skip two practices in August. But beyond that, there’s not a whole lot there.

Sure, Stallings got hit kind of hard. He has a three-year show-cause order that effectively makes him a non-factor for schools looking to hire a coach in that period. But let’s be honest: who was jumping at the chance to hire Stallings?

(Give me a second while I take a quick glance at Oregon State’s basketball program.)

Dan Cage, who was Stallings’ first director of basketball operations and then became a full-time assistant coach, also appears to have been hit pretty hard here, too. I believe he was the unnamed former director of basketball ops who also got a three-year show-cause for refusing to cooperate with the NCAA’s investigation.

That’s a tough sword to fall on for a young coach like Cage.

But as far as Pitt goes, there’s not much. You get the minor stain of going on probation, and that’s kind of it.

We did get some good jokes out of this whole thing.