It’s not a stretch to say that Pitt’s season took a distinctly different course at halftime of the Panthers’ Week Two loss to Tennessee.
More specifically, Kedon Slovis’ season took a different course in that game, and Pitt’s season veered with it.
After sneaking inside the 300-yard mark in the season-opening win over West Virginia, Slovis was well on his way to 400 against the Volunteers, having completed 14-of-24 for 195 yards, one touchdown and a deflected interception in the first half. But with 21 seconds left in the second quarter, Pitt took the ball at its own 37 trailing 21-17. The Panthers had two timeouts but a lot of field in front of them with not much time to traverse it.
Still, the coaches decided to go for it. On first down, Slovis lined up in the shotgun with four receivers spread wide, dropped back and was sacked by Tennessee’s Tyler Baron. The ball came out, the Volunteers recovered and added three points before the end of the half to take a touchdown lead into the locker room.
The point difference wasn’t the biggest consequence of that aggressive decision, though. Slovis suffered a concussion on the hit and did not return for the second half. Redshirt senior Nick Patti took over and completed 9-of-20 for 79 yards and a touchdown while playing through his own injury, taking Tennessee to overtime before ultimately losing 34-27.
The result of the game was disappointing, but the result of the hit on Slovis resonated far beyond that week. He didn’t play in Pitt’s win at Western Michigan the next week, and when he returned for the September finale against Rhode Island, he worked with a decidedly “safe” game plan. More than 20 of his 27 pass attempts that day were nine yards or less downfield, according to Pro Football Focus, and that included 11 passes that PFF designated as screens.
That approach - getting the ball out quickly on easy completions - was based on “protecting me and making sure I was healthy week-to-week,” Slovis said Tuesday. And while it accomplished that goal, it also left Slovis and the offense playing catch-up as they headed into ACC play against Georgia Tech on the first Saturday of October.
Slovis threw 45 passes in a loss to the Yellow Jackets, completing just 26 (57.8%) for 305 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. The touchdowns came late in the game as Pitt tried to shorten Georgia Tech’s surprising lead; on the whole, the offense never seemed to be in sync.
According to Slovis, that was the biggest lingering effect of the shot he took against Tennessee.
“I think less so injury-wise and I think more so just getting the rhythm back into you,” he said. “It felt like it took a few weeks for us to get back in sync offensively, for sure.”
Those few weeks included the loss to Georgia Tech, a win over Virginia Tech when Slovis didn’t need to do much as Israel Abanikanda ran his way into the Pitt record books and a loss at Louisville that saw Slovis complete just 55% of his passes and throw two interceptions inside the Cardinals’ 30.
“Looking back now, I don’t think - I think I was fine mentally,” Slovis said. “The mental stuff wasn’t really from injury; more so just finding a rhythm offensively, passing-wise. When you’re a quarterback and you don’t have completions, you don’t have the success you have initially, you kind of try to find it and I think it took us awhile to find it.”
In Pitt’s loss at North Carolina, Slovis seemed to have more success, consistently hitting play-action shots downfield to senior receiver Jared Wayne, and he built on that in subsequent wins over Syracuse and Virginia. In his view, that’s a byproduct of the offense getting back into a rhythm.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a confidence thing; I would say, more so, just developing a flow offensively. You know, the first play sets up the next, and when you kind of have success on first down it leads to second down. So I think just the flow in terms of our offense and how we’re calling it and how we’re executing things.”
The concussion and its fallout added to an already challenging situation for Slovis. The Arizona native joined Pitt’s roster in December after three seasons at USC, but he wasn’t the only newcomer on the Panthers’ offense. Also joining the unit was coordinator Frank Cignetti, who brought a new system with new terminology and new concepts, and the breadth of the transition gave Pitt’s offense a considerable series of challenges from the start.
“Obviously, you’re learning it but everybody else is learning it,” Slovis said. “They’re running routes a way they’ve probably never done before, they’re learning it, they’re adjusting, they’re getting better and you see them getting better week in, week out. So it’s a big process for everyone. And for me, I’ve never played in an offense like this, I haven’t played in this offense either, so there’s a big learning curve for everyone, I think. So definitely more challenging. If everyone kind of knows and one guy’s learning, it’s definitely probably easier, but it’s also good to learn to learn it all together; I feel like I’m not behind.”
Regardless of the learning curve, Pitt stands at 6-4 with two games left to play. Slovis, who amassed 58 touchdown passes at USC, has thrown just six at Pitt (with three of those six coming in one game). His touchdown pass to Bub Means in Saturday’s win at Virginia was his first scoring throw in five games, and he has thrown for more than 200 yards just twice in the last five games.
To some extent, those low numbers are a natural byproduct of Pitt’s reliance on the running game; in the last five games, the Panthers have recorded 206 rushing attempts and just 136 pass attempts. With Pitt’s success on the ground and still-developing rhythm in the passing game, Cignetti has tended to lean on the run, but Slovis sees improvement in the Panthers’ air attack, and he knows that another year working in the offense could lead to even more progress.
Therein lies a big decision Slovis is facing. He is a senior this fall, but he could come back in 2023 to play a fifth year as a super senior. He says that he has not decided what he will do yet; he knows he will not participate in Senior Day at Acrisure Stadium on Saturday due to family members not being able to attend, but beyond that, he hasn’t made up his mind on what his future holds.
“We’ve glossed over it, the decision-making process,” Slovis said of discussions he has had with Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi, but we have two more games and we’re focused on that. Really just organizing the types of things I need to know or the information I need to get to make the decision.”
As he weighs his options, Slovis said he is considering all factors, including the improvement he and the Pitt passing game could make if he returns.
“I think that’s a big point that we kind of talked about: Year Two in an offense, more and more comfortable with it,” he said. “I think in any offense, more and more reps - you see it now, it’s Week 11; I think it’s as lot better than where we were at the beginning of the year and in fall camp. So I think that’s something that’s kind of proven time and time again: the more confidence, more reps in the system, the better you’re going to be.”
