Kenny Johnson showed promise in his freshman season, enough so, that heading into year two, the talented wide receiver was expected to be a major part of Pitt’s new-look offense.

Through one game in the new system, and it’s looking like those expectations can turn into reality. In Pitt’s season opening 55-24 win over Kent State, Johnson led the Panthers with seven catches for 105 yards and caught a touchdown.

The 105 yards almost matched the 122 receiving yards he had as a freshman. With Pitt’s quarterback situation in flux in 2023, it was hard for Johnson, or any pass catcher, to establish a rhythm, but it looked more fluid for Johnson in the first game of the 2024 campaign.

“I mean, it meant a lot,” Johnson said after his first career 100-yard game. “But really just looking past that because we got a lot of games this year that are huge games. And honestly, we had a lot of guys that could have went for 100. Like, I mean, we got some dudes.”

Johnson stood out, but not by much.

Poppi Williams caught two touchdowns, Konata Mumpfield added another, and Censere Lee was right behind with six catches. Pitt’s season opener showed signs of a major transformation on offense, and also how important Johnson and the rest of the receivers are to the whole operation.

The quick moving scheme is all about timing and being in the right spots, and Johnson recognizes his group’s importance to that.

“It's vital for our offense because everything is so rhythm-based,” Johnson explained. “I mean, that's offense in general. If the quarterback can't trust you to be in the spot when you're going to be there, I mean, his reads are messed up. Everything's messed up. So, trust is everything.”

It appeared there was a good amount of trust between Johnson and redshirt freshman quarterback Eli Holstein in their first game playing together. Holstein finished with 336 yards and three touchdowns and was named the ACC Rookie of the Week for his performance.

The only thing with that connection is that it did not necessarily come conventionally leading up to the opener. Holstein did not pull ahead to take the starting quarterback job until game week, while Johnson had an off and on again camp with injuries that limited his practice time.

The sophomore wide receiver credited Holstein’s willingness to work with him when he first arrived to have something in place between the two of them.

“Like when I think of a pro, like he's a pro,” Johnson said of his quarterback. “Like he had a paper, we had routes that we were going to – he had planned to run, stuff like that. So, we built that connection throughout. And like we'd spot up and stuff even when my legs were messed up. So, we just kept building that connection. It was really just trust.”

The trust broke through early in the game. During Pitt’s first drive, Holstein connected with Johnson for a perfectly placed 46-yard bomb down the sideline, which eventually set up a Pitt score. The sophomore wideout said it was a play they ran earlier in the week, which did not net the same results.

“We just missed it,” Johnson recounted. “And it was literally the same exact scenario. And I told him, I said, ‘hey, in the game, we will hit this.’ And I said, ‘I'm going. Like, I'm not stopping. I'm going.’”

Johnson added, “I mean, he made it easy on me.”

The sure-handed Johnson made another impressive catch in the third quarter, in the corner of the end zone for his second career receiving touchdown. On Monday, Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi noted Johnson made two ‘spectacular’ catches, and was complimentary of the receivers as a whole.

“Overall when you get opportunities, you’ve got to make plays,” the Pitt head coach said. “I think anybody that had an opportunity to catch a ball did a pretty good job at it.”

Johnson admitted it took a little time for the team to buy into new offensive coordinator Kade Bell’s offense, but once they did, the work started to intensify and the results on game day felt simple.

“Once we started drinking the Kool-Aid and practiced hard and do everything the right way so that on game day it's easy, it was so fun out there,” he explained. “I'm not going to lie.”

Pitt will take its new high-powered offense on the road this week, with a noon kickoff slated for Saturday at Cincinnati. The Bearcats defeated Pitt 27-21 last season.