For Pitt's defense, consistency is key

Pitt's defense was good in 2018.

Except when it wasn't.

Bridging the gap between two extremes is the goal for head coach Pat Narduzzi and defensive coordinator Randy Bates as they prepare the team in spring camp. The Panthers' defense returns six players who started in the Sun Bowl and five others who started at least one game and played meaningful snaps.

The personnel losses are significant. Dewayne Hendrix, Shane Roy, Elijah Zeise and Seun Idowu were all multi-year starters. Quintin Wirginis would have been one, too, if not for injuries. And Dennis Briggs was a fixture of Pitt's secondaries and defensive sub-packages for the last three years.

But the returners include 2018's leaders in every major statistical category. Damar Hamlin led the team in tackles (90) and tied for the team lead in interceptions (two) with Jason Pinnock, who is also returning. Rashad Weaver paced Pitt in tackles for loss (14) and sacks (6.5). Dane Jackson had a team-high 14 pass breakups.

That's all positive for Pitt, as was the defense's performance in the majority of last season's games. But a few of the other games are not so encouraging.

Such as the Week Five loss at Central Florida when the Knights run roughshod over a Pitt defense that looked like it was in over its head. UCF put up 45 points that afternoon and could have gone for 60 if it was so inclined.

Or a month later when Pitt hosted ACC Coastal foe Duke at Heinz Field. The Panthers won that game but the Blue Devils had their way with Pitt's defense, piling up 45 points and 619 yards of total offense.

And, of course, there was the Week Two debacle against Penn State when the Nittany Lions beat the Panthers 51-6.

All told, Pitt gave up, on average, 387.6 yards per game and 27.8 points per game; the yardage ranked No. 59 nationally and the scoring ranked No. 75, a drop of 10 spots from 2017. According to the S&P+ ratings, the Panthers' defense was No. 53 in the nation - again, a drop from 2017, when Pitt ranked No. 48.

But not every game was like a display of defensive ineptitude. In fact, Pitt was quite often good on defense last season. Here's a look at how the Panthers against their opponents and, for comparison, a look at what those opponents did on average in 2018.

More often than not, Pitt held its opponents under their season averages for yards gained and points scored. Of the 13 FBS teams the Panthers faced in 2018, nine scored less against Pitt than they did on average throughout the season.

Two of the teams that outperformed their season averages against the Panthers were North Carolina and Central Florida; both were in the first half of the season, and Bates thinks there’s something to be said for some uncertainties among the players in the early going.

“I would just put it mostly on the idea that there was a lot of different guys playing at different levels at different times. What we are trying to stress is consistency. If you look at the body of work, however, in the second half of the season, you see that on defense: the consistent level. That’s what we are trying to do.”

Bates isn’t wrong: after the Duke game, which was Pitt’s eighth contest of the season, the Panthers held every opponent under their scoring averages. And of those six games, only Virginia Tech outgained its season average for yardage; the other five were under the line.

Pitt wasn’t just playing poor offenses, either. Nine of the 13 FBS opponents ranked in the top 50 of the S&P+ offensive ratings; the Panthers held seven of those nine under their season averages for scoring.

Even in the ACC Championship Game, Clemson’s comfortable 42 points hid the fact that Pitt played fairly well on defense. The Tigers obviously struck quickly with Travis Etienne’s 75-yard touchdown run on the first play of the game. But they built their 28-10 halftime lead on a pair of short touchdowns after Pitt turnovers: the first was a one-play, 10-yard drive and the other also took one play and gained all of 13 yards.

Clemson still manufactured three long touchdown drives in the game, but that’s not an altogether terrible performance against one of the best offenses in the nation.

So there was good and bad in Pitt’s defense last season. Finding a balance - or even just shaving down some of those extreme games - will be key for 2019.