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The 3-2-1 Column: A disappointing end, recruiting on the road and more

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In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re talking about disappointment, recruiting, the offense and a lot more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

That’s disappointing
Well, we’re nearly a week removed from the season-ending loss to Boston College, but I doubt that passage of time has healed those wounds. That game is going to sting for awhile.

But it’s not just the sting of one game, is it? Last Saturday’s loss was bigger than four quarters. No, I’m not going down the road of “This has been happening for 40 years;” I’m keeping a more narrow perspective than that.

Rather, the loss to Boston College stings because it was another missed opportunity in a season that had a few of them. Realistically, Pitt could have and probably should have beaten Boston College and Miami. Neither one of those teams is particularly good, they both ended up 6-6 and they both beat Pitt by one score. Those two games were there for the taking, but the Panthers failed to do so.

And because of that, they’re 7-5 instead of 8-4 (at a minimum) or 9-3 (which realistically could have happened).

When you go from 5-2 to 7-5 and do so with a pair of losses to .500 teams, there’s no way to describe that other than disappointing. And those are goal posts that we have moved; while I refrained from setting a win total in the preseason, largely because I just didn’t know what to expect from the offense, I was more than comfortable putting a number on it after a third of the season was complete.

When the “Pitt Special” play worked and the Panthers beat UCF, I drew a line in the sand and said, “This team should win no fewer than eight games.” They had looked pretty solid in a loss at Penn State, and to follow that with an impressive upset of UCF made me think these Panthers were capable of putting together a pretty good season.

And they were capable of that. They absolutely were. But instead of going 7-1 in the final eight after the UCF loss got them to 2-2, they went 5-3. 6-2 would have been acceptable, but that was the floor; that was the low end of what Pitt should have been able to accomplish on the season. And the Panthers fell short.

There are plenty of explanations for how they finished 7-5 instead of 8-4 or 9-3. The offense is the most obvious and direct answer; there are a lot of offshoots from simply saying “it was the offense,” but the reality is, Pitt’s defense played well enough to win just about every game this season. The Panthers allowed 11 touchdowns in the five losses but only seven of those 11 came on drives of 50 yards or more.

If you give up two, one or zero long drives per game, you’re playing well enough to win on defense.

The offenses was the problem, especially in those two games we mentioned earlier. Pitt’s defense only gave up two long drives to Boston College’s offense - but the Panthers only scored one touchdown themselves. Miami drove the length of the field for a touchdown just once against Pitt - but the offense couldn’t get in the end zone. Even in the Virginia Tech game, the Hokies had two long drives, one of which was carried by a busted play, but the Panthers couldn’t even sniff the goal line.

And that brings us back to the original point: 7-5 is a disappointment because so much was within reach. At least two more wins were hanging there for Pitt to take, and the Panthers failed to do so. Maybe they weren’t going to get back-to-back Coastal Division titles, but going 9-3 with a shot at 10-3 (or 8-4 with a shot at 9-4) was a perfectly good goal and one that, upon achievement, would have made 2019 a successful season for Pitt.

But that didn’t happen. And despite some flashes of inspiring play, these Panthers were simply too inconsistent.

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Season success doesn’t have as much impact
There was a funny turnaround after the game, though. While fans spent the rest of the weekend and the start of the new week lamenting the disappointment of the season and its finish - like I just did in the first section of this column - the Pitt coaches packed their bags and hit the road.

It’s recruiting season, after all, and as soon as the regular season ends, coaches start to travel. It’s called the “contact period,” and during this time, coaches can have in-person contact with a recruit off-campus. That means they can go into a high school and into the recruit’s home to further build personal connections.

So while fans were feeling sorry for themselves on Sunday, Pat Narduzzi, Charlie Partridge and Cory Sanders were sitting in the living room at Dayon Hayes’ house, spending some quality time with possibly the top overall recruit in the class.

And the next day, the entire staff fanned out across Pitt’s recruiting territory. Partridge was in his home base of south Florida. Narduzzi and receivers coach Chris Beatty spent some quality time with top receiver commit Jordan Addison. Sanders followed up with an emerging safety target. Mark Whipple went into southern Georgia and northern Florida for a pair of visits. And tight ends coach Tim Salem headed for the coast - he was in California on Monday to see a junior-college prospect.

Those coaches might have been in different locations, but they all had the same mission:

Spread the word about Pitt and get recruits interested in the Panthers.

All the negativity about the Boston College loss and the 7-5 season was left behind, as the coaches put on their Pitt gear and got to work on the business of selling a vision of the Panthers’ future. And by all accounts, the message is getting across. Narduzzi and company have had good visits with committed recruits and seemed to be well-received by some of the top targets they checked on.

That all comes back to something we’ve said for years:

Aside from extreme situations - say, winning a national championship or going 0-fer - the current season doesn’t tend to have too much of an immediate impact on recruiting. The kids Pitt visited this week probably didn’t spend too much time dwelling on what happened with the Panthers this season. It’s relevant, of course, just like any piece of information, but for the most part, the loss to Boston College probably wasn’t at the forefront of any recruit’s mind while talking to Narduzzi and company.

In almost all situations, what you typically see is that the most recent season has the biggest impact on the next recruiting class. Last year, Pitt won the Coastal Division but didn’t see a huge immediate bump on the 2019 class; instead, you saw the Panthers turn that success - despite the 7-7 overall record - into a really productive spring and then one of the best Junes Pitt has had.

So when people ask me how much of a hit Pitt’s 2020 recruiting class will take from the 2-3 finish to the season, my answer usually is, “Not very much.” If the Panthers lose any of the current commits, it won’t be a product of the record; kids aren’t typically that reactive.

On the contrary, Pitt coaches go on the road for the first big week of recruiting talking positivity and optimism about the future of the program. That’s what the recruits hear - and that shapes a lot of their perception.

The priorities
So, as Narduzzi and his staff beat the bushes for recruits to fill out the 2020 class, what are they looking for?

If this week showed us anything, it’s that the coaches have some specific goals in mind with the December Signing Day approaching in less than two weeks, and it’s not hard to figure out those goals if you look at the current recruiting class:

2 running backs
3 receivers
2 offensive linemen
3 defensive ends
1 defensive tackle
3 linebackers
1 cornerback
1 safety

What’s missing from that list? I don’t mean the quantity of defensive backs; we know Pat Narduzzi will never sign a recruiting class with only two secondary prospects. And I’m sure this class will have another corner or safety - or both - added to it before the class is finalized in February.

But I’m not talking about the numbers of corners or safeties; I’m talking about two positions that are clear and glaring needs, both on the current roster and in the recruiting class.

Of course, I’m talking about quarterback and tight end.

I suppose quarterback isn’t necessarily a “clear and glaring need” on the current roster; Kenny Pickett has one more year, Nick Patti has three and Davis Beville hasn’t played a snap yet but has earned a ton of praise for his work on the scout team this fall. The roster isn’t in dire need of a quarterback, but the recruiting class is. Even if you like the depth you have, taking a quarterback every year is still pretty important.

There’s a whole other discussion to be had about that topic, because as the market of available transfer quarterbacks continues to grow, the need for getting a high school prospect every year lessens; basically, if you can’t get one of the top high school guys on your board, maybe it’s better to hold the scholarship and hit the transfer market in the spring.

But that’s a discussion for another day, because Mark Whipple has been working to get a quarterback in the class, and this week we’ve seen him visit an offered target and at least one potential target.

Tight end, on the other hand, is a need on the roster and in the class. After Will Gragg and Nakia Griffin-Stewart run out of eligibility following the bowl game, Pitt will have two scholarship tight ends returning - Grant Carrigan and Kyi Wright. Two is probably not enough, especially when those two will be a redshirt junior who has never caught a pass and a redshirt freshman who has never played in a college game before.

Now, a fresh-out-of-high-school prospect is probably not going to be an immediate boost to the position group but is an absolute necessity for rebuilding the depth at tight end. So the coaches are pursuing several high school recruits at tight end but also looking at graduate transfers and junior college players.

The staff is casting a wide net for tight ends, and I don’t think it’s tough to see why. I always say that you can learn a lot about the construction of a roster by looking at previous recruiting classes; I think you can learn a lot about the construction of a recruiting class by looking at the roster.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

How many tight ends do you need?
Let’s talk about tight ends a bit more for a minute.

Because right now, Pitt seems to be legitimately testing the waters on taking three tight ends in this class - one high school prospect, one junior college transfer and one graduate transfer.

That’s a lot for one class. It would make sense in terms of roster construction, though, since having five scholarship tight ends seems like a reasonable number, particularly if this is the class breakdown:

1 redshirt senior
2 redshirt juniors
1 redshirt freshman
1 freshman

That’s a pretty good distribution of eligibility. You get the redshirt senior grad transfer to lead the charge this season while the redshirt junior (Carrigan) serves primarily as a blocker and the redshirt freshman (Wright) gets playing time and experience. Then you see what the junior college transfer (who would be a redshirt junior) can contribute and you redshirt the freshman.

Do that, and you can come back the following season (2021) with Carrigan playing his role, Wright and the JUCO transfer ready for meaningful contributions after a year of experience and maybe the freshman is ready to see some snaps as a second-year player.

That’s a pretty ideal way to build depth at a position, and unfortunately for Pitt, that’s what the Panthers have to do right now. It’s not what they should have to do when they’re entering Year Six of a head coach’s tenure, but that position has just been a black hole for Pitt.

Need we refresh our memories?

In the 2015 class, Narduzzi inherited a commitment from Kittanning’s Nick Bowers, but we all know how that one ended up (and that’s not really on Narduzzi; Bowers was gone to Penn State as soon as that offer came, regardless of who Pitt’s head coach was). In 2016, Narduzzi and company didn’t land any tight ends.

They made up for that in 2017 with a three-headed monster of Carrigan, Charles Reeves and Tyler Sear, and to be quite honest, that looked like a really good group. Carrigan was a blocker, Reeves could be a pass-catcher and Sear could do a little bit of both. But Reeves never played a snap before he went AWOL in the summer of 2018 and ended up transferring to Youngstown State. And Sears and Pitt mutually split in the middle of last season; he’s at Temple now.

That class crushed Pitt’s chances of building good tight end depth, and the Panthers have made an annual habit of hitting the transfer market just to build a roster, signing Chris Clark in 2016, Matt Flanagan in 2017, Gragg in 2018 and Griffin-Stewart in 2019.

Reeves and Sear are good players; they might not have lessened the staff’s desire to sign Flanagan in 2017 or maybe even Gragg in 2018, but if Reeves and Sear were still on the team this offseason, there wouldn’t have been a need for Griffin-Stewart.

With both guys gone, though, the coaches were back behind the eight ball with tight ends. They tried 2018 recruit Kaymar Mimes at tight end for a bit, but he was back on defense this year. And in 2019, Pitt’s lone tight end signing, Jason Collier, had long been earmarked for a move to the offensive line.

It’s something that will probably defy explanation for a long time, but for whatever reason, the tight end position has been pretty much a giant void for this coaching staff. Should you ever take three tight ends in a class? No, you’d like to not make a habit out of it. But this year’s class is shaping up to be the second time Narduzzi has had a legitimate reason to sign that many.

How can a team get out of its own way?
Switching gears to team stuff and away from recruiting for a minute…

In the continued postmortem on the football team’s regular season, I just can’t get away from something that stood out to me throughout the fall, something that seemed to be this team’s undoing in so many situations, something that was, to my mind, the cause of at least three losses, if not more, this season.

Mistakes.

Put another way, sloppiness.

Put another way, doing not-smart things.

Put another way, lacking discipline.

Put another way, being your own worst enemy.

Put another way…eh, you get the picture. And you’ve seen me write about this and heard me talk about this before, haven’t you?

Mistakes. I’ve written about mistakes a lot, and I’ve kept a running tally of just how many correctable, avoidable mistakes this team has made.

The number I came up with was 102.

That’s 10 interceptions, 21 fumbles (11 of which were lost), 39 dropped passes (according to Pro Football Focus) and 32 procedure penalties.

That’s 102 correctable mistakes. Those things weren’t the product of talent or ability; granted there is some of that in interceptions and dropped passes, but on the whole, those errors, when they occurred, were avoidable and correctable.

Those mistakes were the product of sloppy play, undisciplined play, unfocused play. There’s no referee bias or even subjectivity in calling a false start; that’s entirely on the player who wasn’t focused enough. It’s not really complicated: know the snap count, know the situation and don’t jump.

And yet, there Pitt was in game No. 12 committing two false starts on the first drive and then getting another one to turn a sure touchdown from the 1 into a goal-to-go from the 5. How were those mistakes still happening in the 12th game of the season? And being committed by seniors, no less?

There were just too many times this season when you watched this team play and thought, “Boy, they just seem to be sloppy.” They did things that good teams don’t do and they did things that smart teams don’t do, and there’s a not-coincidental overlap between those two groups of teams.

Pitt didn’t fit into either category because they simply couldn’t get out of their own way. For all of the issues, from the lack of a running game to inconsistency in the kicking game to a defense that didn’t force enough turnovers, this team still had every opportunity to go 9-3, if not 10-2.

That’s not an exaggeration either. If you look at Pitt’s five losses, two stick out as definite blown opportunities: Miami and Boston College. In those two games, the Panthers had 27 of those correctable errors I mentioned - three interceptions, seven fumbles (four lost), eight dropped passes and seven procedure penalties (all false starts despite both games being played at home).

Since pretty much every issue we’re talking about here was an offensive issue and Pitt scored a grand total of one offensive touchdown in those two games combined, it’s not hard to see where the arrow is pointing here.

But my question is, what can a team do to get out of its way? How do you coach guys to be more focused? Pat Narduzzi, Dave Borbely, Mark Whipple - these guys have been around for a long time. They’re not young coaches. They should know the ways and techniques to get players to have a little more focus, a little more discipline. And I’m sure they’ve done everything they know to get the message across this season.

But the message hasn’t been heard. It hasn’t gotten through. And those same mistakes continued all season long.

I don’t know what the answer is. I do know that if these issues continue next season, if the 2020 Pitt football team is defined by its mistakes the same way that this one has been, then it’s going to be another disappointing season.

ONE PREDICTION

The offense will be better next year
I don’t know. I’m grasping at straws here.

It was easy to write predictions when there were games every week, since you could always make up something like “Habakkuk Baldonado will have an interception” or “Paris Ford will score a touchdown” or “Pitt will have a 100-yard rusher.” Or you could fall back on the classic game prediction.

Easy stuff, and simple enough to build a final section for the column out of those topics. But now the season is over and I’m not sure what to predict. I could make some recruiting predictions, but maybe we’ll do that next week. And I could predict tonight’s hoops game against Louisville, but I’m pretty sure we’re all on the same page with how that one is going to go.

So I’ll go with the football team’s offense: I hereby predict that they will score more than 24 touchdowns in the regular season.

Man, it’s ugly just typing those words.

There’s very much an inherent feeling of, ‘Well, it can’t get any worse, right?’ But we all know that it very much can get worse - we saw a can’t-get-any-worse get worse from last season to this season, didn’t we? I mean, the passing game was actually a threat this year, which was an improvement on the previous season. But the running game was completely nonexistent and the offense wasn’t nearly consistent enough in reaching the end zone.

By a whole bunch of measures, the offense did take a step back from last season, so we won’t say that it can’t get any worse; things can always be worse.

But I’m saying that won’t happen. I’m saying the offense will improve. I’m saying that a second year of working with Mark Whipple will have Kenny Pickett playing his best as a senior. I’m saying that all the reps that Carter Warren and Gabe Houy and Carson Van Lynn and Jake Kradel and Bryce Hargrove played as first-year starters/contributors this season will pay dividends in having them prepared for next year.

I’m saying that a full season of a healthy Shocky Jacques-Louis will boost his numbers exponentially. I’m saying that Jordan Addison and Jaylon Barden and Israel Abanikanda and Henry Parrish (if he signs with Pitt) will push the talent level of their position rooms up considerably.

Every position group on Pitt’s offense should be better in 2020 than it was in 2019. If they all improve, even just a little, and if they can cut down on the mistakes - yes, I’m going to keep coming back to that all offseason - then this offense can take a step forward next season.

So I’ll predict that now and see if anyone remembers when the next Election Day rolls around.

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