Mack and Ffrench look to pump up the volume

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Every player on a football field needs some help from the players around him, but few positions are as outright dependent on others as wide receiver.

Quite frankly, receivers can’t do much of anything if no one throws them the ball. So Pitt’s Maurice Ffrench and Taysir Mack, by the nature of their position, have to rely on quarterback Kenny Pickett.

It would be hyperbole to say that no one threw the ball to Mack and Ffrench a year ago, but it’s certainly not a stretch to claim that they were vastly underserved.

In 2018, Pitt’s three leading receivers - Ffrench, Mack and Rafael Araujo-Lopes - combined to catch 92 passes for 1,452 yards and 11 touchdowns. For context, the ACC’s leading receiver, Olamide Zaccheaus from Virginia, caught 94 passes by himself last season, and N.C. State’s Jakobi Meyers grabbed 92 as well. Six other players nationally had more than 92 receptions, two had more than 1,452 receiving yards and 15 caught more than 11 touchdown passes.

Putting up numbers at receiver is a matter of opportunity, though, and that’s what truly set Ffrench, Mack and Araujo-Lopes apart from the pack - or behind it - last season. Those three saw a combined total of 162 passes thrown their way in 2018; there were only three teams in the ACC that saw fewer targets thrown to their top three receivers, and one of those was Georgia Tech, who was still running Paul Johnson’s triple-option offense.

The other two teams to finish behind Pitt in passes thrown to the top three receivers were Boston College (157 targets for Kobay White, Jeff Smith and Tommy Sweeney) and Miami (156 targets for Jeff Thomas, Brevin Jordan and Lawrence Cager), but in actuality, the Panthers even trailed those teams since the target totals are a volume stat and Pitt benefited from playing in 14 games - one more than the Eagles and Hurricanes played.

In terms of targets per game, Ffrench, Mack and Araujo-Lopes ranked No. 13 among each ACC’s top trio of receivers, ahead of only Georgia Tech.

And the in-conference comparisons aren’t really even needed; the numbers themselves are stark enough on their own. Last season those three Pitt receivers were targeted, as a group, 11.6 times per game.

Zaccheaus saw almost that many passes per game by himself.

There’s certainly something to be said for the fact that Pitt had a run-heavy offense last season, but even that doesn’t totally excuse the lack of usage for the Panthers’ top three receivers. Zaccheaus, for instance, was the ACC’s leading receiver and saw double-digit targets in nine games while playing for an offense that ran the ball, on average, 38 times per game.

Pitt, by contrast, averaged 40 rushing attempts per game, and the only time a Panther receiver reached 10 targets was when Ffrench saw that many passes in the Sun Bowl.

Two other teams in the conference - Syracuse and Wake Forest - both ran the ball more than Pitt last season, and they each had a trio of receivers finish with more targets than Ffrench, Mack and Araujo-Lopes had.

The numbers don’t lie: Pitt’s receivers were underutilized last season, and it’s no surprised that Araujo-Lopes’ 37 receptions tied for the second-fewest by a Pitt leading receiver in a single season since 1993 (trailing only Derek Kinder’s 36 in 2008, when the Panthers had an equally moribund passing game).

It all begs the question, though: with a healthy amount of targets, what are Ffrench and Mack capable of?

“I think if me and Taysir got that many targets, we could both be 1,000-yard receivers,” Ffrench said during the first week of Pitt’s 2019 training camp. “There’s no question: we definitely can do it. Last year just wasn’t our time, I would say. We had two great backs who deserved the ball and they put the time in. The work they put in, they deserved everything they got.

“But me and Taysir, I feel like we can definitely take that step and make plays for our team.”

At his 2018 averages - 14.7 yards per catch, 60% reception rate - Ffrench would need to catch 68 passes on 113 targets. In 2018, that reception total would have ranked fifth in the ACC; it’s a lofty goal but not an unbelievable one. Mack would have an even easier path to 1,000 yards if he maintained his 22.3 yards per reception and his 50% reception rate from last season; that would require him to catch 45 passes on 90 targets.

If Mack and Ffrench combined to see 203 targets, they would be in the top five of the ACC as a duo. That’s a big jump from being behind everyone other than Georgia Tech and seems unlikely given the team’s stated desire to run the ball, but Mark Whipple might be the right offensive coordinator to pull it off.

In his time at UMass, Whipple’s offense was defined by getting the ball to the playmakers. Largely, that meant receivers Andy Isabella and Tajae Sharpe tight end Adam Breneman. Last year, Isabella saw 146 targets; the year before, he was targeted 105 times and Breneman saw 92 passes. In 2016, they both topped 100 targets. And in the two years prior to that, Sharpe averaged 156 targets per season.

Pitt’s not going to approach that level, but if Whipple continues to single out and emphasize playmakers, Ffrench and Mack should be the ones who benefit.

“Some people say the sky’s the limit, but why say the sky’s the limit when people walk on the moon?” Mack said at Pitt’s Media Day. “I’d say, between us two, we can make anything happen. We have a great offensive coordinator who came in, he believes in us, and we have a great receivers coach. Me and Maurice are over here trying to race to the Biletnikoff. That’s how we see it.”