Four days after Pat Narduzi heaped praise on Israel Abanikanda, the sophomore running back took a handoff on the first play of Pitt’s Blue-Gold Game on Saturday and was stuffed for no gain.
It went much better the next time Abanikanda touched the ball. On the first play of the Blue Team’s second drive, Abanikanda took a handoff and broke an 18-yard run. And when he got his third carry, Abanikanda turned it up another notch, turning second-and-23 into a fresh set of downs with a 42-yard run in one of the scrimmage’s best plays.
Abanikanda only carried the ball three more times on Saturday at Heinz Field, but he finished with 77 yards on six attempts and emerged from the Blue-Gold Game as one of the stars of the show. And for an offense that is desperately in need of an improved running game, having a star at running back is high on the list of priorities.
“This year is a whole different running game,” Abanikanda said after the Blue-Gold Game. I believe in the older running backs, my own running, the O-line, I believe in everybody on the offense, even the receivers that will be blocking, too. It’s going to be a great running game this year.”
That might be the single most important development for Pitt this offseason. If the offense has been the Panthers’ biggest issue the last two seasons, then the running game has been the offense’s biggest issue. In 2019, Pitt averaged 118.8 rushing yards per game, ranking No. 119 nationally, No. 13 in the ACC and ahead of just five other Power Five teams.
The rushing attack improved ever so slightly last season, when the Panthers averaged 119.9 yards per game and ranked No. 111 nationally and No. 13 in the conference. Those numbers were boosted by Vincent Davis’ season-ending performance when he ran for 247 yards on 25 carries. But that breakout performance accounted for nearly 40% of his total season production - he finished the 11-game campaign with 632 rushing yards - and it was the exception, rather than the rule, when it came to Pitt’s ground game over the last two years.
Quite simply, the Panthers have needed more from their rushing attack, whether it comes on the efforts of Abanikanda, Davis, A.J. Davis, Todd Sibley or Daniel Carter. And while Narduzzi had declared Vincent Davis the starter early in spring camp, Abanikanda’s performance in the final weeks of the spring shook things up a bit.
“It’s competition every day,” Abanikanda said Saturday. “So it probably just made me excited to compete with these good football players, these running backs like Vincent Davis, T-Sibs, A.J. Davis and all the other running backs. It’s competition every day; that’s what Coach Powell tells us. He tells us, ‘Who;’s going to be the one who separates today? Who’s going to be great today?’”
With his performance on Saturday, Abanikanda seemed to announce his intentions, but he said that’s nothing new, as far as he’s concerned.
“I feel like that guy every day.”
“Izzy’s been strong all spring,” Narduzzi said Saturday. “He’s bigger; I think he put 80 pounds on his squat and 40 pounds on his bench. I mean, he’s jacked up, he’s playing fast and I was surprised that P.J. O’Brien tackled him that one time on the Gold sideline; I thought he was gone. Maybe he had an angle on him.”
Abanikanda’s combination of size and speed has never been in doubt, and he arrived at Pitt as a midyear enrollee last January looking to take use spring camp as a boost into a primary role in the backfield. But spring camp was cut short, which hindered his learning process and led to him carrying the ball less than 30 times in six games. He did score two touchdowns - one rushing and one receiving - but the overall production was less than he had hoped for from his freshman season.
From Abanikanda’s perspective, making plays with the ball in his hands wasn’t an issue; it was the other elements of playing running back in college that limited his opportunities in 2020.
“The biggest thing I wanted to work on was pass-pro. Definitely pass-pro. Because I had a struggle with pass-pro my freshman year; started to get better now. I never really did pass-pro in high school that much in New York - they didn’t really blitzed that much, so definitely it was a struggle for me freshman year. I’m starting to get better now.”
If Abanikanda has improved enough in pass protection to earn the trust of the coaches, then he should find himself on the field a lot more than he was last season. And if that happens, he’s got a chance to push Pitt’s running game to another level.
“I know last year I wasn’t really that confident because I was a freshman and quarantining and everything, so I wasn’t able to learn everything so fast…so after the season, I just took time, learning and learning, so I knew in spring ball I just had to work every week. During spring ball, I was confident in myself, I learned the plays; I would just be patient and explode.
