The 3-2-1 Column: A charmed season, individual standouts, the polls & more

In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're thinking about Pitt's win over Syracuse, the season so far, standout individual performances, the polls and more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

A charmed season

I am officially removing “luck” from my 2024 football season lexicon.

I’m not saying it anymore, because I’ve said it too much already.

I said it when Cincinnati got called for a penalty that gifted Pitt a third-down conversion.

I said it when Daejon Reynolds’ first target of the season was a triple-covered heave to the corner of the end zone that he miraculously caught.

I said it when Cal bumbled a couple two-point attempts and the Bears’ kicker missed a 40-yard field goal.

I said it when Brandon George was laying on the ground and had the ball drop into his hands against Syracuse.

I said it those times and probably more. But that’s it for me. I’m not talking about luck anymore, because in the aftermath of Pitt’s win over Syracuse, I realized what I was doing.

I was taking credit away from the players, and you know what? That’s not right at all, because at this point in time, Pitt’s players are operating at a very, very high level.

Calling it “luck” diminishes just how well the Panthers are playing, and I’m not going to do that anymore.

Now, I think there’s something to be said for the ball bouncing your way, which I’m going to force myself to call something other than luck. But here’s what really matters:

When the ball bounces your way, what happens next? Do you grab it and make a play? Or does it bounce past you, a missed opportunity that could have changed the game but didn’t because you just couldn’t pull it in?

Said a different way, when luck created an opportunity for you, what did you do?

Luck created some opportunities for Pitt this season. And the Panthers capitalized.

I think that’s what has to happen. I think if you could print the recipe for a magical season, a truly special season, somewhere in there would be a bit about seizing opportunities. You have to play great, you have to have great players and you have to have great coaches. But you also need the ball to bounce your way sometimes - and you need to make the most of it when that happens.

Through seven games, that’s exactly what Pitt has done. When Cincinnati gave the Panthers that third-down conversion, they made it hurt. They drove another 52 yards in about 102 seconds to set up a game-winning field goal.

When Reynolds made that ridiculous catch, it didn’t stand as Pitt’s final highlight. That catch only cut WVU’s lead to three; the Panthers still had to get a defensive stop (which they did) and then drive 77 yards in less than two minutes to win (which they also did).

Ditto for the Cal and Syracuse games:

Opportunities presented themselves and Pitt capitalized.

It hasn’t always been that way, as we all know. There have been plenty of times in the past when Pitt didn’t capitalize, plenty of times when the Panthers failed to take advantage of the opportunities.

But this season, they’re taking full advantage - and they’re riding it to an undefeated record.

Sometimes it all comes together. The teams who have truly great seasons are the ones who can seize the opportunity when that happens.

Incredible individuals, pt. 1

If we’re going to talk about individual players, we have to start with the quarterback or the running back or the improving defensive line or the dominating linebackers or impressive defensive backs, right?

Well, yes, we’re going to talk about them. But not first.

First, we have to talk about Ben Sauls.

I mean, Ben Sauls is simply out of his mind right now. He’s a perfect 12-for-12 this season, and those 12 kicks extend his streak of consecutive makes to 14 dating back to last season, which sets a Pitt record. But I’m more interested in what Sauls is doing right now, because what he’s doing right now is pretty wild.

Included in Sauls’ perfect dozen this season are four kicks from 50-plus: a 50-yarder against Kent State, a 53-yarder at Cincinnati, a 58-yarder against Cal and the 57-yard kick he made against Syracuse on Thursday night.

I think you can throw in the 49-yard kick he made against Youngstown State and the 49-yard kick he made against Syracuse, too, because those were pretty damn long and they give him a perfect 6-for-6 on kicks of 49-plus. And he had a 47-yard make at Cincinnati, too, so 7-for-7 from 47-plus.

That’s big-time. That’s reliability in its purest form.

Get inside the 40, and Sauls will get you points.

It’s as simple as that.

Naturally, Sauls is kicking his way into Pitt history. His 58-yard kick against Cal tied a Pitt record set by Alex Kessman at Boston College in 2020, and I’m not betting against him making one from 59 this season. The Pitt record for field goals made in a season is 23 (Dan Hutchins in 2009); I think Sauls has a decent shot at that one.

The Pitt record for field goal percentage in a season is 92.3% (Chris Ferencik in 1995); obviously Sauls is on pace to top that one if he keeps up what he’s been doing. And the record for most points by a kicker in a season is 115 (again, Hutchins in 2009); Sauls has a 69 points through seven games, so that one is in reach.

Sauls may or may not stay perfect forever, but man, he sure has been perfect so far.

Why are we highlighting him first in this column, though? I mean, his stats are impressive, but he’s still a kicker; certainly there have to be offensive or defensive players we should be talking about, right?

Sure, and we’ll get to them. But here’s the thing about Sauls:

He’s the safety net. He’s the virtual guarantee that if the offense can get the ball over midfield, they’re going to have a pretty-close-to-perfect likelihood of getting points. And if the defense can get a turnover that puts the ball in plus territory, they know there’s at least three points going up on the board.

He’s the sure thing that can make a kick when time is running out.

He’s the reason - one of them, anyway - I still believe that even if Cal’s kicker made the 40-yard field goal to take an 18-17 lead, Pitt had a better than even chance of coming back and winning. All the offense would have had to do would be to drive 35 or 40 yards and get inside the 40; after that, Sauls would take care of business.

For teams to have those truly magical seasons - a concept we are going to talk about a lot in the next week - it takes standout performances from a lot of players.

That includes the kickers. Pitt has won three one-score games this season, and Sauls has kicked five field goals in those three games (and his two field goals at North Carolina led Pitt to win by 10 instead of four).

Pitt is winning for a lot of reasons. Ben Sauls is one of them.

Incredible individuals, pt. 2

Okay, about the defense.

More specifically, about the linebackers. Because boy howdy have they been playing at a high level.

Of course, we’re writing this column the morning after Pitt’s linebackers recorded 41 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss, two sacks, four interceptions and three defensive touchdowns in the win over Syracuse, so yeah, there’s some recency bias.

Except for the fact that the recency bias extends beyond this week. Or the week before or the week before that.

It has been happening all season. Pitt’s linebackers have been playing at a really high level all season. Kyle Louis has already been named ACC Linebacker of the Week twice (once for the West Virginia game and once for the North Carolina game). With six tackles and a pick-six, he would probably be a lock to get his third weekly honors, if not for Braylan Lovelace.

The sophomore from Leechburg only had two tackles, but one of them was a sack and he, too, had a pick-six. That would seem to make Lovelace a lock, if not for Rasheem Biles.

Rasheem Biles, man…

12 tackles, one sack and Pitt’s first pick-six of the game. Unless they split the vote (Brandon George could sneak some votes, too, after he had an interception, but his didn’t go for a touchdown, so he’s down the list a bit) I have to think Biles will get it. But look at the entire body of work here:

On the season, Biles has 52 tackles, nine tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, one interception and one touchdown in six games. Louis has 60 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, three interceptions and a touchdown. And George has 52 tackles, three tackles for loss, one sack, an interception and a touchdown on a blocked punt.

Oh, and there’s Lovelace, who has started three games; five of his 22 tackles have been made behind the line of scrimmage, including three sacks, and he’s got that pick-six from Thursday night. And Jordan Bass is starting to come on; he’s got 2.5 tackles for loss this season after getting 1.5 against Syracuse in addition to breaking up a pass that ended up getting intercepted by P.J. O’Brien.

Talk about production from the linebacker position.

I generally shy away from hyperbole, but I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say this is the best group of linebackers Pitt has had in the Pat Narduzzi era.

Seriously, who can compete? There have been good individual players - SirVocea Dennis and Kylan Johnson come to mind - and good individual stat lines - Matt Galambos had 88 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, five sacks and two interceptions in 2015, as well as catching a fourth-down pass from punter Ryan Winslow - but I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this:

A group of linebackers who can legitimately go two-deep at all three spots with little drop-off from the first group to the second. The middle linebackers (George and Keye Thompson) are experienced veterans who stabilize things, and the outside linebackers are explosive athletes with the ability to change a game on any snap.

In a season full of revelations, the linebackers are pretty close to the top of the list. And I’m not sure they’re anything lower than No. 1.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Where did these linebackers come from?

Pitt’s linebackers were sensational on Thursday night, and quite frankly, they’ve been pretty outstanding all season long.

Through seven games, the Panthers’ top six linebackers - Louis, Biles, George, Lovelace, Thompson and Bass - have combined for 217 tackles, 29 tackles for loss, 10.5 sacks, six interceptions and four touchdowns.

That’s pretty incredible, and while Louis and Biles have been the headliners - combined totals of 112 tackles, 17.5 tackles for loss, 6.5 sacks, four interceptions and two touchdowns - the whole group has been impressive. Lovelace would be a starter on most teams that didn’t have a player like Biles (although Lovelace has started three games this season). And Bass played his best game on Thursday night, flashing some of the potential that was hyped during his recruitment.

The end result is the best group of linebackers Pitt has had under Pat Narduzzi. How did it come together?

I think there’s a genesis point, a spot where Pitt’s linebacker recruiting shifted, where the coaches really honed in on a certain type of player at linebacker - players who might be a little smaller but make up for it with athleticism and explosiveness.

To some extent, Narduzzi has always targeted athletic linebackers. But in the last four years, it seems like the staff has narrowed its focus even more. It really goes back to the 2020 recruiting class, when Pitt signed Bangally Kamara and Solomon DeShields. If you set aside what became of those players’ careers and look at who they were as recruits, you can see the archetype:

Athletic linebackers who may not have played linebacker in high school and whose recruitment likely took a hit because of it. Like Kamara, who was viewed as being too small for linebacker and too slow for safety. Or DeShields, who played some defense but was mostly featured on offense.

The next year, Pitt signed Preston Lavant as the lone linebacker in the class but, you know, Covid and all of that created a difficult recruiting situation. In the 2022 class, though, the coaches worked the formula again. They signed two linebackers: Louis, who played all over the place for his high school team but was under-recruited due to his size and was committed to Temple until Pitt flipped him, and Marquan Pope, who was a safety in high school.

And that led to the 2023 class: Lovelace played middle linebacker at Leechburg because they needed their best player in the middle of the defense, but he probably would have been a safety at a bigger high school; Biles was viewed as a ‘tweener - like Kamara - and under-recruited because of it; and Bass played safety and receiver.

Those players have different body types, of course, but they all have enough athleticism, explosiveness and playmaking ability to overcome and concerns about size.

Pitt tapped into something with its linebacker recruiting, and the results have been really impressive.

Where will Pitt be ranked?

The outcome of this question is bound to disappoint, I fear. But it shouldn’t, because Pitt should be ranked in the top 15 when the new polls come out on Sunday.

Quite frankly, I don’t care what happens with the teams ranked ahead of Pitt. No. 18 Ole Miss is ranked right ahead of the Panthers; the Rebels are 5-2 and will host Oklahoma on Saturday.

No. 17 Boise State (5-1) is at UNLV tonight. That should be interesting. No. 16 Kansas State (6-1) will host Kansas. No. 15 Alabama (5-2) will host No. 21 Missouri. Any of those games could be won or lost by the ranked team, but guess what?

It shouldn’t matter.

It shouldn’t matter if Alabama and Ole Miss win. It shouldn’t matter if Boise State wins. Or Kansas State.

None of that should matter, because regardless of what happens tonight or tomorrow, all of those teams will still have something that Pitt doesn’t have:

A loss.

Or, in the case of Alabama and Ole Miss, two losses.

And there is no way that a two-loss team should be ranked ahead of an undefeated team from a power conference. Not when that undefeated team is 7-0.

This isn’t 3-0 or 4-0 we’re talking about; it’s 7-0. It’s a team that has gotten past the midpoint of the season without a loss.

Alabama can’t say that. Ole Miss can’t say that. Boise State and Kansas State can’t say that.

In my view, if you make it to 7-0, the conversation about “Who did you beat?” starts meaning a little bit less. And really, who did Kansas State beat? UT-Martin, Tulane, Arizona, Oklahoma State, Colorado and West Virginia. Who did Boise State beat? Georgia Southern, Portland State, Washington State, Utah State and Hawaii.

Maybe Pitt’s list of vanquished opponents is no more or less impressive than those, but I’ll tell you what is more impressive:

The zero in Pitt’s loss column.

And don’t get me started on Alabama and Ole Miss. I’m sorry, but it’s shameful to have two two-loss teams ranked in the top 20. It’s shameful to have one two-loss team ranked in the top 15. If those two teams lose this weekend, it will be easy to drop them into the 20’s or even out of the poll. But even if they win, I think the voters really need to give serious consideration to pushing Pitt up into the top 15.

I’m sure there would be cries of anguish. How could ‘Bama and Ole Miss drop when they won their games?

Consider it a course correction, and I think this course very much needs some correcting. We get so caught up in setting the preseason poll and then reacting within that construct, but at a certain point, you need to give credit where credit is due.

When a team from a power conference gets to 7-0, credit is due. Pitt should be in the top 15.

ONE PREDICTION

The offense will continue being up and down

…just ideally with a bit more “up”

We made it this far without talking about the offense, but we can’t close the column without some mention of it.

As such, this “prediction” section is less a prediction and more of an excuse to talk about the offense. Maybe I should have used the ranking discussion as a prediction - Pitt will be ranked in the top 15 - but oh well, here we are.

I’ll start with the disclaimer that I highly recommend everyone else use as well:

Thursday night’s game was not a great one for evaluating the offense due to the low volume of plays they ran. The Panthers logged 44 offensive plays in total; that was the lowest single-game total of the season by a pretty good margin. Against Cal, they ran 56, which was the fewest of the season. At North Carolina the number was 77. Pitt dipped into the 50’s against West Virginia, but just barely at 59. And the season high came in the opener with 81 plays against Kent State.

The low play volume is kind of a natural byproduct of the way Pitt’s defense played against Syracuse. Three pick-sixes means three Syracuse drives basically doubled in size - as did the Pitt offense’s time on the sideline.

At the end of the first half, the Panthers had a time of possession of just 9:36; Syracuse’s first drive of the second half took almost that entire amount of time (9:34).

So everything about the win on Thursday night comes with that caveat. Only running 44 plays limits what you’re going to achieve, and we have to take that into consideration.

But…

We also can’t ignore what Pitt did with those 44 plays. The Panthers averaged 4.93 yards per play, their lowest average of the season. And then we have another bit of context to add, because that 4.93 yards per play came one game after Pitt averaged 4.95 yards per play in the win over Cal.

The Panthers averaged 6.75 yards per play at North Carolina and 6.42 against West Virginia, so it’s not like they fell off a cliff in that stat, but they did take a dip that has now extended to multiple games, and it’s probably prudent not to ignore it.

My conclusion on the matter is this:

Pitt has a redshirt freshman quarterback who never played in a college game prior to this season running an offense installed by a first-year coordinator calling plays at this level for the first time. That right there is reason enough to expect a few bumps in the road; throw in a transfer running back, a couple transfer receivers, some musical chairs at left guard and a season-ending injury at left tackle, and you have some complications.

That doesn’t excuse Eli Holstein missing receivers or making bad decisions or holding onto the ball too long. He didn’t do all of those things all the time, but he did them some of the time, and if Pitt is going to keep its success going, he’s going to have to do them less of the time.

My guess is, the offense will continue roller-coastering to some extent. Really, that was happening in the first five games, too; Holstein had his moments of inconsistency and struggles throughout the month of September, but he was able to round himself into form and make big plays to win games.

In the last two games, he really hasn’t been able to do that last part - the rounding into form - although I do think his two touchdown passes against Syracuse were pretty good throws.

I think it’s just the natural progress of a young quarterback and a new offense. There will be ups and downs, ebbs and flows, strikes and gutters. The thing Pitt needs the most is forward progress. Get a little better, improve a couple things at a time and learn lessons from every game.

I think Holstein is pretty smart. I think Kade Bell is, too. They know what they need to do.

If they can do it, with the way Pitt’s defense is playing and the way the Panthers’ special teams are executing…well, I don’t know. We just might have a situation here.