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Pitt hopes to make deep passes fade out

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Pitt’s pass defense seemed to have no limits in its susceptibility.

The Panthers couldn’t play the ball on deep passes and they missed tackles on short passes. That’s how they ended up with one of the worst sets of statistics in the country, particularly the 333.2 passing yards allowed per game, which ranked No. 127 - second-to-last - nationally.

The biggest issue, though, the one that cost Pitt throughout the season, was the fade pass. The Virginia Tech game was the best example of that, as the Hokies’ decent passing offense looked unstoppable behind a barrage of fades that seemed to stop only when Virginia Tech got close to the goal line (a curious decision that led to six field goals and kept the game closer than it really was).

Defensive coordinator Josh Conklin and his staff certainly spent a lot of time this offseason studying the ways that opponents attacked them, and the fade was a common theme. Conklin counted 144 fade pass attempts against Pitt last year - a number that is often below 100 in a given season.

“The way that we play, that’s what we know people are going to go after us,” Conklin told the media this spring. “So when you get that, you have to bring that percentage down. This year it was like 36% completion rate on the fades, which isn’t good enough; there have been some years where they throw 100 fade balls and you may have two or three completions. And that varies.

“You’re seeing offenses that are willing to throw it up a lot more, so when we looked all of those fades, you can start to see things that we’ve got to do a better job of as far as the finish.”

If fade passes were a common theme for opposing offenses, the need to finish better was a common theme for Pitt’s defense. Throughout the 2016 season, Pat Narduzzi talked about defensive backs being in the proper position but failing to make the necessary play, and the players agreed with that evaluation.

“The coaches had us in the right spot,” senior cornerback Avonte Maddox said recently. “We just have to make the play. It’s their job to get us in the spot; it’s our job to make the play.”

So how do the two connect? How can the players take the step from being in position to finishing the play? As always with football, the answer lies in practice.

“We work on it every practice,” Maddox said. “That’s something we do every time: cut them off, get our heads around. If he’s 10 yards and he’s looking back, then we know the back shoulder is coming. So that’s something we have to work on and as we work on it, we’ll get used to seeing it in the game and it will become second nature to us.”

Unfortunately for Pitt, what became second nature in 2016 was giving up those completions. Seven teams threw for at least 300 yards against the Panthers last year; six topped 350 yards, five went over 400 and two - Oklahoma State and Clemson - crossed the 500-yard mark. Every FBS team that faced Pitt in 2016 completed at least two 20-yard passes and at least one 30-yard pass; nine teams completed at least one 40-yard pass. And one out of every six completions against the Panthers gained at least 20 yards.

Plus, 19 of the 28 passing touchdowns Pitt gave up came on pass plays of 20-yards or more. The big plays killed the Panthers last year, and they gave up a lot of them.

“We had our ups and downs when they would complete a play, but when we came back, we were always like, ‘Let that one go. There’s always the next play,’” Maddox said. “But eventually, as you keep letting it go and it’s always the next play and they keep completing it, you’re going to get frustrated. It’s a new year, that’s the past; you always forget the past.”

Maddox and his mates will be able to forget about some of the quarterbacks who torched them in 2016: Mitch Trubisky (453 yards and five touchdowns), Jerod Evans (406 yards and two touchdowns), Brad Kaaya (356 yards and four touchdowns) and Deshaun Watson (580 yards and three touchdowns) are all gone, as are some of the receivers who also had field days against Pitt.

But Mason Rudolph and Trace McSorley are still coming back, as are 10 other teams who will look to have the same success in 2017 that those players had in 2016.

“It’s on us,” Maddox said. “Some plays, we didn’t get our head around to compete with the ball and we didn’t finish at the end. Now we plan on competing and we plan on finishing at the end. Not saying we didn’t plan on competing last year, but we’re just getting better and we’re learning more.”

And that means focusing more on the fade balls. At a position where pride is a built-in feature, cornerbacks see fade balls as the ultimate test.

“It’s you or him,” Maddox said. “It’s a 50-50 ball. It’s you or him. When the ball is thrown up, that’s what it is: either you’re going to get it or he’s going to get it and see who’s going to make the play.”

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