The 3-2-1 Column: A commitment run, position rankings, QBs and more

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In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're talking about Pitt's commitment outburst, the next recruiting targets, position rankings and more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

A run on commits
Who says Pitt needs it to be June in order to get commitments?

And who says Pitt needs visits to get commitments?

Sure, this spring may have looked uneventful on the recruiting front for the Panthers, what with a recruiting dead period preventing visits and June - the month of high recruiting activity - still six weeks off. But then Wednesday happened and things got…well, they got a bit crazy.

For the first time since last June, Pitt got multiple commitments in one day. In fact, Wednesday was the first time Pitt got multiple commitments on a non-June day since Mychale Salahuddin and Habakkuk Baldonado both announced for the Panthers on Signing Day 2018.

But Wednesday wasn’t just a two-commitment day for Pitt; no, Pat Narduzzi actually celebrated his 56th birthday that day with three commitments, an astonishing number that seemingly came out of the blue.

First up was Hampton (Va.) Phoebus defensive end Trevion Stevenson. Next was Hyattsville (Md.) receiver Jaden Bradley. And the night was capped by one more recruit who didn’t make his own public announcement yet, and since reporting a recruit’s commitment before the recruit himself announces it is almost as bad as grocery shopping without a mask, we’ll refrain from discussing him until he makes public.

Regardless, that run of commitments doubled Pitt’s 2021 class from three commits - where the Panthers had been sitting since late January - to six and provided a nice chunk for a class that should end up being pretty sizeable for Narduzzi.

“Size” was actually a prominent trait in Wednesday’s commitments. Stevenson is a 6’5” outside linebacker in high school who will be a 6’5” defensive end in college once he adds some considerable weight. Bradley is a former quarterback who played receiver for one season at DeMatha and did enough to earn an offer from Pitt last November. At 6’4”, he’ll be the tallest scholarship receiver on the roster when he joins the Panthers next season.

That’s a good run of commits to get on a random Wednesday night in April - especially in the middle of a pandemic-induced dead period. And it kept rolling on Thursday when Massillon (Oh.) Washington offensive lineman Terrence Rankl committed, giving Pitt its first offensive line recruit in the class.

So Pitt got a defensive end, a receiver and an offensive lineman (plus someone else); that little outburst on Wednesday and Thursday more than doubled Pitt’s commitment list, and I’m guessing the Panthers will have some more names added to the list before too long. More on that in a minute.

Earning it
Trevion Stevenson is an interesting recruit. His offer sheet, at least as it looks on Rivals.com, is pretty loaded. 40 schools are listed, highlighted by Florida State, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Penn State, Tennessee, Texas and more.

There are some questions about those offers; not all of them might be “committable” right now, but there definitely seems to be genuine interest from a good number of schools on that list. Regardless of what other schools might think, though, one guy seems to be convinced about Stevenson:

Charlie Partridge.

Pitt’s defensive line coach likes Stevenson’s potential, and I gotta say, he has probably earned enough benefit of the doubt that his approval is good enough for the rest of us. And with Stevenson, “potential” is a good word for it. He is listed at 6’5” and 217 pounds; he may not be quite that tall, but he definitely looks lanky on his film, so offering him and taking his commitment means there’s a bit of projection going on.

The Pitt coaches - Partridge, in particular - are looking at Stevenson’s body and his film and thinking about what he can grow into. There’s guesswork involved there. It’s informed guesswork - informed by years of experience - but it’s guesswork all the same.

Still, when we’re talking about Charlie Partridge, I think I’m comfortable giving him the benefit of the doubt. The guy is an outstanding recruiter and one heck of a defensive line coach; if he says a kid has a high-percentage chance of becoming a difference-maker, then I’ll buy it.

The same goes for Jaden Bradley. He’s a raw receiver. He only played the position for one season, and while he did pretty well during that one season, it’s still only one season. He was a quarterback throughout his football career, but last year he moved to receiver.

By November, he did enough to earn his first offer, and that offer came from Pitt. More schools got on board later, but there’s still the question of how much of a project he will be.

Here again, I’m deferring to the coaches. We’re still finding out about Chris Beatty’s abilities as a receivers coach, but he has certainly proven himself as a recruiter, and his talents on that end alone earn him the benefit of the doubt.

If he thinks Bradley is legit, then I say go for it.

The other thing to keep in mind with all of these commitments is that the class is still just getting started. Pitt has seven commitments, but the class of 2021 is probably going to be pretty big - bigger than last year (Pitt signed 18), the year before (Pitt signed 19) and the year before that (Pitt signed 20). The Panthers signed 24 in the class of 2017, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them be around that number this year.

So there are plenty more recruits to be added to this class, and I think it’s important to keep a “whole-class” perspective as the coaches continue to bring recruits into the fold.

Wide receivers can be a surprise
Turning back to the current team for a bit…

Earlier this week on the Panther-Lair Show podcast I did a thing. I ranked the positions on Pitt’s 2020 roster, putting the various groups in order according to strength. As I defined it, “strength” was a combination of top-line talent, overall depth, production and expectation.

Not surprisingly, the defensive ends were No. 1 for me. I think that group is as strong as any on the team, with really good returning starters - three of them, actually - and some reserves who are more than up to the task.

I had some controversial picks in there, like putting the quarterbacks ahead of the defensive tackles. But one of the more interesting discussions to come out of the exercise was the matter of which position stood to move up the most.

To answer that, I looked at the wide receivers. I put those guys at No. 8, ahead of only tight ends, running backs and offensive tackles. For the record, I think all four of those positions could move up a lot this season, but I really focused in on the receivers because I think that group has a ton of potential to break out.

The reason it ended up so low is because of what’s coming back. Taysir Mack has been good at times in his Pitt career. Shocky Jacques-Louis has made a few splash plays when he has been on the field. And Jared Wayne was Pitt’s second-leading receiver over the final four games of the season last year, but that was only four games in a freshman campaign.

So there’s potential, but not much of it has been consistently realized. The same goes for Tre Tipton, who is back for a sixth season but needs to get healthy first. And then you have guys with little to no contributions, like returning players Michael Smith and Dontavius Butler-Jenkins and Will Gipson (who was injured as a freshmen last year) and newcomers Jordan Addison, Jaylon Barden and Aydin Henningham.

Lots of question marks, which is why I put them at No. 8. But I can’t help myself: I love the potential in the group. Mack can make tough catches downfield. Jacques-Louis can make big plays after the catch. Wayne is a really solid possession receiver who might be able to do even more than that. And Addison and Barden are really exciting freshman receivers.

That’s five guys right there that I think can elevate the passing game this season. Add in Tipton or Gipson or Smith or Butler-Jenkins or Henningham, and you’ve got more athletes who can potentially help.

I just really like this group. They just have to live up to their potential. If they do, Pitt’s passing game should be a whole lot better than it was a year ago, when it put up a lot of numbers but wasn’t very efficient or explosive.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

What about the linebackers?
Speaking of those position rankings, one group I struggled with was the linebackers. I put them at No. 7, right above the receivers, but I wasn’t entirely convinced about that spot.

On one hand, you’ve lost two starters from last season in Kylan Johnson and Saleem Brightwell. They combined for 116 tackles, eight sacks and 14 tackles for loss.

On the other hand, you’ve got two guys coming back who played a lot last season and were pretty productive in Cam Bright and Phil Campbell. Campbell started nine games and Bright started three, but they both played a ton and were pretty productive. Bright was actually the third-leading tackler on the team with 62 stops, while Campbell was fifth with 56.

Bright also had nine tackles for loss; Campbell had eight TFL’s and 5.5 sacks.

Those two were good players in rotation roles, but they should be ready for full-time starting jobs this season.

The questions for the linebackers, though, are as follows:

Who’s the middle linebacker? And who provides the depth?

At middle linebacker, Chase Pine is probably the most likely candidate. He’ll be a redshirt senior, and while he has never settled into a starting role, he has played quite a bit and did make two starts at MLB. In theory, he should be ready to step into the starting position and he’s got an ideal skill set for the middle linebacker position, but that’s just a theory; we need to actually see him do it.

And behind Campbell, Bright and Pine, it’s all unknown. Last year’s two-deep doesn’t provide much help: Pine was listed as the top backup at two spots and Campbell and Bright were listed as co-starters at the third linebacker position. Wendell Davis was a second reserve at middle linebacker, so he’ll probably elevate to the primary backup spot.

At the outside positions, though, it’s wide open. SirVocea Dennis saw some playing time last season; he’ll be in the mix. Brandon George probably will, too. Neither one of those guys redshirted as freshmen, so they would seem to have the inside track. But you can’t rule out redshirt freshman Leslie Smith or, for that matter, freshmen Solomon DeShields or Bangally Kamara (A.J. Roberts enrolled early at Pitt, but he’s a middle linebacker).

Last week in this column, I wrote about how the depth at defensive back was concerning, but linebacker is a question mark, too. There’s plenty of time for those questions to be answered, and just like Campbell and Bright emerged last season, new players could emerge in 2020. But until they do, those questions will be on the table.

Will there be a season?
Ha. Gotcha.

I don’t have an answer for that. No one does. This would be a perfect clickbait question to throw into the middle of this column if not for the fact that there’s nothing to click on - you’re already in the column; you already clicked - so in that regard, it’s a failure as clickbait.

Anyway, like I said, nobody knows if there is going to be a football season. I actually do get that question quite often, though, and I can understand why. After all, I ask myself the same question daily and usually a few times a day. I know I have to prepare myself, both professionally and personally, for the potential of no football, simply because it’s a real possibility.

Is it likely to happen? I have no idea, one way or the other. Some days, I convince myself that football will happen this fall. Some days, it goes the other way.

In the meantime, I try to look for something, anything, to give me an indication of which way things are leaning. So when I saw news on Wednesday that the NHL is looking to restart its season in July, the first thing I thought was, ‘Well, that’s a good sign.’

And I think it is. Just like baseball in Taiwan is a good sign: anywhere people can start having sports again is a good sign for those of us hoping to see football played this fall. If other sports show it can be done, then the likelihood increases for football, I would think.

But there’s one hangup: college football, which is a primary interest here, is a little different. It’s different from the NHL or Taiwanese baseball or even the NFL. Because those are pro sports and college football is…well, it’s college football.

I know we all share a good laugh at college administrators when they bloviate about the “student” part of student-athletes and how education is important and all of those things. But there’s still a certain reality in the connection of the sport with institutions of higher education. Even in the mighty SEC, there’s got to be a concern about whether you can have college football without college.

That’s the big thing I’m watching right now: will there be college in the fall? It seems to me that the question of whether colleges with enrollments in the tens of thousands can have in-person classes is one that needs to be answered by mid-summer, at the latest. I would imagine that college football programs could activate on a bit shorter notice, which means that I think colleges will decide to be open before college football decides to be played.

And in some sense, I think one depends on the other. There can’t be college football without college. If students aren’t on campus taking classes - if everything is happening remotely - I just don’t see how you can have student-athletes in town getting ready for games. I just don’t see it.

So while movement from the NHL or any other pro sports organization toward playing again soon is certainly a good thing, the bigger thing to watch will be what the colleges do. At least from where I’m sitting.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt will get a quarterback without a visit
I’ve had a recruiting prediction in this section of the column each of the last few weeks, and I’m going to keep it up this week with another one:

Pitt’s quarterback in the 2021 class will be a recruit who commits without taking a visit. And it will probably happen before June.

As a matter of fact, I’ll go even stronger on that and say I’ll be shocked if Pitt gets to June without a quarterback on the commitment list.

Of course, that’s not just a wild guess. We’ve been writing a lot about quarterbacks this week on Panther-Lair.com, highlighting a trio of guys who all have a lot of interest in Pitt but haven’t visited yet.

There’s Emmett Morehead, a California native who is playing high school ball in Virginia (although he’s back home in the Bay Area for now). And then there’s Nate Yarnell and Hampton Fay down in Texas. All three of those guys have offers from Pitt, all are high on the Panthers and not one of them has set foot on Pitt’s campus.

Which creates an interesting conundrum. Maybe not a conundrum, per se, but at least another example of the interesting situation we’re in. None of those guys can visit Pitt right now due to the NCAA recruiting dead period. They can do virtual tours, which all three have done in recent weeks, but they can’t physically set foot on campus.

Where things get really interesting is that the quarterback position operates on a different timeline. With few exceptions, schools only take one quarterback in each class, so the spots fill up quick. As a result, quarterbacks often find themselves committing earlier than a lot of other positions, or at the very least they feel more pressure to commit early than other positions do.

Morehead is a good example. He’s got a handful of Power Five offers, including Pitt, but he saw one of those offers go off the table earlier this month when another quarterback prospect committed. That served as something of a wake-up call for Morehead, and now he could be getting close to making a commitment of his own.

Yarnell and Fay may or may not have had those eye-opening moments like Morehead did, but they know where they stand with the schools they are considering. They both might prefer to hold off on committing until they can take a visit, but they also probably both realize that might not be possible, lest they run the risk of missing out on an opportunity.

Unless something crazy happens, though, I’m fairly confident Pitt is going to get one of those three guys - and get them soon.