Pitt looks for new help at its most productive defensive position

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Pitt didn’t lose a starting boundary safety to the NFL or graduation this offseason, but the Panthers are looking for someone to step up at that position nonetheless.

That’s because junior Jordan Whitehead, moved to field safety this spring after spending the last two years on the boundary side, a switch that will give Pitt more speed on the back end of the defense and, ideally, give Whitehead more opportunities to make plays against the pass.

But the position move leaves a void at boundary safety, and for that spot, the coaches have a few options.

One option is redshirt junior Dennis Briggs. For him, Whitehead moving to field safety means a real opportunity to start for the first time in his Pitt career. Briggs has recorded 25 tackles in the last three seasons, including two sacks, 3.5 tackles for loss and two forced fumbles while working as the extra defensive back in Pitt’s third-down package.

“I’m super excited,” Briggs said. “I feel that I’ve been watching older guys in front of me for a couple years now, and it’s definitely my turn to step up and try to be a leader on this team and try to be a guy who goes out there and produces. I’m excited for the opportunity.”

Redshirt freshman Phil Campbell may be younger than Briggs, but he is providing the upperclassman with all the competition he can handle. Head coach Pat Narduzzi and defensive backs coach Renaldo Hill both praised Campbell last week, and he definitely has some pedigree. The Kendall Park, NJ, native was a do-everything star at South Brunswick High School where he was named the MSG Varsity All-New Jersey Player of the Year as a senior.

He redshirted as a freshman at Pitt in 2015, and while that wasn’t his original plan - it never is - Campbell has taken the benefit-of-hindsight view that most players find after an inactive year.

“Redshirting, I mean, it was hard not playing, but I definitely learned a lot and got bigger and stronger,” he said. “I just watched the guys in front of me and I feel like a completely better player, just because I learned so much last year.”

That learning process has carried over to this year, and now he’s learning from the player who is competing with him for a starting job.

“I learn a lot from Dennis. Every day I watch film, I make sure I watch him, because he knows exactly what he’s doing, he knows the defense in and out, he’s a physical, strong guy and he’s very smart. So I can learn a lot from him every day.”

“Phil’s definitely pushing me,” Briggs said. “Phil, he’s getting better every day, so it’s not like I’ve got the job locked up. We’re still in a big competition. So I take that as a positive thing. It’s a great thing to have Phil behind me right now, pushing me, seeing him get better every day, as well as Henry Miller and Rimoni Dorsey; those guys are getting better every day. Those guys are challenging me to step my game up every time I go out on the practice field.

“Phil’s a super physical guy. A real physical guy, a lot of intangibles. He’s a guy who can get on the field and he’ll end up in the right spot without even knowing what the defensive scheme is. He just has a knack for the football, and I think that’s what the coaches like about him a lot, too. Wherever the football is, you’ll see him around it.”

Physicality seems to be the key word with Campbell, who recorded more than 100 tackles in each of his final two seasons in high school, as Hill echoed a lot of what Briggs had to say about the redshirt freshman.

“He sees the ball and goes and gets the ball,” Hill said last week. “That’s what Phil does, and he’s an attack guy downhill. He’s not letting up; he’s not going to be timid around the pile. You need that enforcer back there, and we’re hoping that’s something he can provide for our unit.”

Campbell’s skill set is particularly well-suited for the boundary safety position. In Narduzzi’s scheme, the boundary safety plays in the box and has a significant role in the highly-emphasized run defense. Whitehead led the team in tackles as a freshman while playing that position, and he was well on his way to repeating that statistical win in 2016 before he broke his arm at Clemson (even still, he finished fifth on the team in tackles despite playing just nine games, and his tackles per game average was No. 1).

“I definitely like boundary safety; it’s fun because I get to just be around the football and be physical,” Campbell said. “It’s a good mix of run and pass, but I definitely get to play the run and just be aggressive.

“I’m an aggressive player. I like to be physical and I think that we could definitely - me, Dennis and Jordan, all of us - really can be very physical back there and bring that factor this year.”

Briggs and Campbell were the top two options at boundary safety this spring, but another redshirt freshman has thrown his name into the mix during training camp: Henry Miller, a converted cornerback who is built like a linebacker but can run well enough to play in the secondary.

“Henry Miller has been like, the lights turned on,” Narduzzi said Monday. “And they’re bright. Fluorescent. And there’s a lot of them. So Henry’s gotten himself in the mix as well. But Briggs has done a great job. So has Phil and so has Henry. They’re all - like I said, the lights came on for Henry. Phil has been doing a good job; the lights were on when camp started. Henry, the lights have turned on, and he’s a big athletic guy.”

Defensive coordinator Josh Conklin agreed with Narduzzi’s assessment.

“He had a hard time early on, just in terms of kind of getting his feet in the ground, understanding big-picture what we wanted, just in terms of the coverage checks and some of the cover-four checks and things that we do. But he’s done a good job. We’ve moved him back and forth between field safety and boundary safety, and I think that has served him really, really well in terms of just maybe picking it up a little bit faster.”

Miller said Monday that he thinks “deflections and tackles” are what has caught the attention of the coaches, adding that he thought he performed well in both of Pitt’s camp scrimmage so far.

“I've just been putting in extra work,” Miller said. “What I've realized since high school is that it's a much harder game and there's more talent at the next level. I've just been trying to work on my craft and asking coaches questions and stuff like that."