The 3-2-1 Column: A spate of good news

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In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about a positive end to the season and a recent spate of good news for the Pitt football team.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

The season that was
Since the Quick Lane Bowl ended kind of late last Thursday night, we postponed the 3-2-1 Column for a week. That means this is the first column of the new year but also the first column since the 2019 season officially ended for Pitt.

So what do we make of the Panthers in 2019? A few words come to mind.

Promising is one of them, because the team was competitive in 12 out of 13 games and only got blown out once.

Underachieving is another, because they only won eight of those 12 games and lost two they certainly should have won.

Yeah, it’s a mixed bag, as is often the case. But at the same time, I think it’s a little more cut-and-dried than 2018 was. That season was really conflicting because on one hand you had a 7-7 team with a .500 record that was the epitome of mediocrity (or worse). On the other hand, you had the Coastal Division champions, a title that was legitimately earned with a 6-2 record in the conference.

We spent all offseason debating that season and what verdict to issue.

I don’t think it will be as tricky this offseason, simply because 2019 was a year where Pitt got back to eight wins, which is nice but ultimately underwhelming because the team really should have won nine or 10.

The “games you should win” - I’ve used that phrase a few times in the last month, and I suspect it will be a common theme this offseason. This year it was Miami and Boston College, two 6-6 teams who reached bowl eligibility because Pitt laid an egg against them. Miami and Boston College were not good this season. They very much earned a record of 5-7. They should not have been in a bowl game.

But Pitt punched their tickets. The Hurricanes beat the Panthers with one long drive. Just one. They only scored two touchdowns in the game, but one was on a 17-yard possession after an interception. Boston College had two long drives and then wore down Pitt’s defense with the running game in the fourth quarter.

The Panthers should have won both games. Instead, they turned the ball over seven times and blew it.

The season-opening loss to Virginia put Pitt in a hole for the Coastal Division, but that didn’t have to doom the season. The Panthers still could have produced a very respectable season that ended with a quality bowl game. All they had to do was win the games they were supposed to win.

But they didn’t. And just like the inconsistent offense and the really good defense, that’s going to be one of the defining themes of the 2019 season.

The best for last
If we’re looking for positive signs, for something encouraging to send everyone into the new year believing that the best is yet to come, then I would say Kenny Pickett is probably someone we should all consider.

Quite simply, he was pretty close to outstanding against Eastern Michigan. 27-of-39, 361 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Statistically, he wasn’t terrible against Boston College - 75% completion, 323 yards, one pick - and he was even better against North Carolina - 61% completion, 359 yards, one touchdown - but the Quick Lane Bowl stands out, mostly because of the three touchdown passes and no interceptions. Compare that to the previous five games when he threw two touchdowns and five interceptions, and you see why it looks like Pickett finished on a high note.

Ultimately, Pickett’s up-and-down junior season produced five 300-yard games and Pitt’s first 3,000-yard passing performance since 2012. He was far from perfect, and while some of that was on the pass protection, which was suspect, the offensive line doesn’t take all of the blame. Pickett still struggled with pressure - real or perceived - didn’t always have great touch on his passes and could have done a better job of going through his progressions.

But I think if you add up the positives, you can find enough to be encouraged about. When Pickett was sharp, he was really good. Good enough that you would trust him to lead the team to a comeback win, which he did against UCF, Duke, North Carolina and Eastern Michigan. He still has the whatever-you-want-to-call-it (maybe it’s moxie, or maybe he’s a “gamer”) that enabled him to lead that win over Miami in 2017; to those skills he has added a more refined passing ability and an offensive game plan that calls for him to be the centerpiece of the offense.

And that’s what he should be. For all the questions about this offense, Pickett was pretty clearly the best option to give the ball to. Pitt’s running game never got going this season, and while we can debate whether that was by choice or by ability, I think Pickett gave the team the best chance to win. He has a lot to improve on for next season, and working with Whipple for two consecutive seasons should help him considerably.

But he’s going to enter 2020 with two full seasons as a starter and coming off the best performance of his career. That’s a good place to start.

And while I’m sure the coaches will be open to whichever quarterback shows himself to be the best man for the job, I have little doubt that Pickett will be the answer. If he can build on what he did in Detroit, that’s a good thing for Pitt.

Really good news
It was a pretty solid week or so for Pitt football. The Panthers quickly moved from “tragedy impending” to “tragedy narrowly averted” in the Quick Lane Bowl, turning a potential disaster of a loss into a pretty good comeback victory.

Then, over the course of the next few days, the Panthers got three bits of positive news as all three of the defensive players who were considering leaving for the NFL decided to put that off for a year and return to Pitt.

As you know, I’m talking about Jaylen Twyman, Patrick Jones and Paris Ford, and those are three huge pieces of the defense. Twyman led Pitt in sacks in 2019, Jones was the team’s best pass-rusher and Ford topped the Panthers in tackles while also grabbing a team-high three interceptions.

Let’s add up the numbers, just for fun: in 2019, Twyman, Jones and Ford combined for 181 tackles, 26.5 tackles for loss, 19 sacks, 103 pressures (per Pro Football Focus), three interceptions, 15 pass breakups, seven forced fumbles and one defensive touchdown.

Yeah, those guys had a bit of an impact on Pitt’s defense this season, and the prospect of losing one, two or all three caused some of the shine to come off the unit for next year. The Panthers are already going to lose seniors Amir Watts, Saleem Brightwell, Kylan Johnson, Dane Jackson and (probably) Damar Hamlin; absorbing those losses is doable, given the depth Pitt has built, but adding Twyman, Jones and/or Ford to that list would have been concerning.

I think it even got to the point where Pitt fans were hoping for, at best, one or two of those three to come back. Instead, they’re all coming back, and the Panthers’ defense all of a sudden looks a whole lot more formidable than it would have otherwise.

Really, even just the retentions of Twyman and Jones make a huge impact. Pitt went from potentially losing three starters from the defensive line to losing just one. And the group will add Rashad Weaver and Keyshon Camp back into the mix after they missed the 2019 season due to injury.

So the Panthers’ defensive line room will have Jones, Weaver, Twyman, Camp, Deslin Alexandre, Habakkuk Baldonado, John Morgan, Devin Danielson, Tyler Bentley and David Green - and all of those guys other than Weaver and Camp played a lot in 2019.

I mean, out of Weaver, Jones and Alexandre, somebody is going to be coming off the bench. That’s crazy enough on its own, since all three of those guys have been full-season starters at some point in their careers. Talk about an embarrassment of riches. And if they all stay healthy, Pitt’s defensive line will be even better than it was in 2019. Which is pretty scary.

I could probably apply that sentiment - 2020 could be even better than 2019 - to the whole defense, actually. And again, that’s scary.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Who’s the biggest returner?
I’m not talking about kick and punt returners (although that’s something to dive into when we start previewing 2020).

I’m talking about those three guys I mentioned above: Jaylen Twyman, Patrick Jones and Paris Ford. Of those three, whose return means the most?

Well, you might have noticed that I finished that last section of the column talking at length about Twyman and Jones and the defensive line but didn’t spend nearly as much time discussing Ford and the safeties.

That’s because Paris Ford gets his own section. His decision to skip the NFL Draft for this year and return to play another season at Pitt is huge for the Panthers. Absolutely huge.

I know I’m preaching to the choir on this, but hear me out. Because while Twyman and Jones are big pieces of the defensive line puzzle, that unit has a lot of depth. I personally think Jones was perhaps Pitt’s best overall defender in 2019, but if he had left, the Panthers would still have Weaver, Alexandre, Baldonado and Morgan making for a pretty solid two-deep at defensive end.

Twyman was sensational in his first season as a full-time starter and there is definitely a bit less experienced depth at tackle, but there are still quite a few players there who have seen the field. There would be drop-off without Twyman - more than there would be at defensive end without Jones, but not nearly as much as there would be at safety without Ford.

A big part of that is because Damar Hamlin is out of eligibility (assuming the NCAA doesn’t give him an extra year, which could happen). Losing Hamlin is a blow to the secondary and the safety position; losing Ford would potentially cripple it.

No, Ford wasn’t perfect in 2019. He still improvised when he needed to play within the defense, and a few of his mistakes led to big plays for the opponent. But let’s be honest: he’s also the most exciting player to suit up for Pitt since Tyler Boyd and the Panthers’ most exciting defensive player since…I mean, I guess you would have to say Aaron Donald; he was pretty exciting for a defensive tackle. But even he didn’t have the flair that Ford brings. So maybe H.B. Blades? Or someone further back?

Either way, let’s forget history for a second and look more at the future. As in, the immediate future in 2020 where Ford will enter the season as one of the top defensive playmakers in the ACC. He made the all-conference first team in his first season as a starter, and he’s got the potential to be an All-American if he keeps improving and maturing in the defense.

And that’s the other side of Ford coming back for another year: it was the right decision for him. He was sensational this season, but I don’t know if he played well enough in one year to move into the top two rounds of the Draft. I even wonder if he would have been a third-round pick. He’s got top-round potential, but I just don’t know if there was enough for NFL scouts to go on (although it only takes one, as we all know).

But by coming back for another year, by continuing to get coached and develop, he can legitimately play himself into the second round of the Draft, if not the first round. His ceiling really is that high. And as we all saw this season, this defense will give him opportunities to make plays.

Did the last few games hurt the defense’s credibility?
The returns of Twyman, Jones and Ford were all positive stories, but they came after a stretch of about a month that didn’t look so hot for the defense. Let’s consider the final four games of the season.

North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Boston College and Eastern Michigan averaged 27.8 points and 386.5 yards per game against Pitt. If those were the Panthers’ season averages on defense, the team would drop from No. 36 to No. 66 in scoring defense and from No. 15 to No. 63 in total defense. That’s obviously not very good, but I don’t necessarily think Pitt’s defense got shredded in those final four games.

Okay, hold on for a quick second while I amend that. Pitt’s defense did get shredded for most of the game in the Quick Lane Bowl. There’s no reason the Panthers should have given up 30 points and 438 yards to Eastern Michigan. Sure, the Eagles had a pretty decent offense this season, but still that shouldn’t have happened.

Let’s look at those other three games, though. One stat that I’ve talked about a lot this season has been touchdowns when the opponent has to drive the length of the field. To be more specific, I looked for touchdown drives when the opponent started on its own side of the 50. There were 149 of those drives this season, and Pitt’s opponents scored touchdowns on 20 of those drives.

That works out to about 13.4%, which is a pretty impressive number.

But it’s not as good as it was earlier in the season.

Virginia, for instance, didn’t have a single touchdown drive of 50+ yards. Ohio had one. Penn State had two. UCF had two. Delaware had none. Duke had one. Syracuse had two. Miami had one. Georgia Tech had one (a 51-yard play after getting the ball from a fumble).

None of Pitt’s first eight opponents produced more than two 50-yard touchdown drives.

UNC broke the trend. The Tar Heels got three of those long drives, largely on the strength of freshman phenom Sam Howell’s passing. Virginia Tech and Boston College did it twice each. And then EMU managed three long touchdown drives.

Putting that all another way, Pitt’s defense gave up 20 touchdown drives of 50+ yards this season. 10 of the 20 came in the final four games.

That’s not good. And yet the defense had its redeeming moments in those final four games. That unit made some big stops on UNC late in the fourth quarter and in overtime to secure the win. And the defense also came up with big plays at the end of the Quick Lane Bowl to get that victory as well.

In Pitt’s loss at Virginia Tech, the Hokies scored four touchdowns but one was a defensive score on a fumble recovery and the other was a 25-yard drive after a turnover on downs. Even though they scored 28 points, the Hokies were held to 263 yards.

Boston College went for 387 yards, but even though the Panthers gave up two long drives and couldn’t get off the field in the final minutes, it’s hard to put that one on the defense since the offense committed four turnovers and all four of those led to points led to field goals.

So I guess it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The defense might have come back down to earth a little bit in the final four games after playing at a really high level in the first 2/3 of the season. But at the same time, the Panthers were still a pretty stout unit that made life difficult for their opponents. And with what they’re returning in 2020, they should be just as good, if not better, next season.

ONE PREDICTION

There will be a QB competition in 2021
Really going out on a limb with that one.

Of course there will be a quarterback competition in 2021. Kenny Pickett has one year left, and when he’s gone, everybody else will fight for the open starting job. But that impending battle got a whole lot more interesting this week with the news that Arizona State transfer Joey Yellen is joining the team this spring.

Since reporting the news of Pitt landing Yellen this week, I’ve heard from a bunch of Arizona State fans, and every single one of them had nothing but praise for Yellen. They actually sound like they would be disappointed to lose Yellen if not for Jayden Daniels, who blew up as the Sun Devils’ starting quarterback this season.

ASU fans are delighted to have Daniels, but they still think Yellen has a really bright future.

So those are some positive comments from ASU fans, and that’s not what you always get in those situations. Either way, Yellen looks like a pretty good addition to Pitt’s roster. A really good addition, in fact, and his decision to join the Panthers has two primary impacts:

The first, as I mentioned, is it puts a player with a lot of potential into the mix for that 2021 quarterback competition. The coaching staff really likes what it has seen from Davis Beville, who redshirted and worked on the scout team as a freshman this season; from everything I’ve heard, the expectations are really high for him.

I think they also have some faith in Nick Patti; if nothing else, they believed he could lead the team to a win over an FCS opponent - which he did, albeit in more-dramatic-than-necessary fashion.

Prior to Yellen’s transfer, that was it for the 2021 quarterback competition - Beville and Patti. You’d have potentially one or two guys from the 2020 and 2021 classes as well, but they would be a freshman and a redshirt freshman, giving Beville and Patti the advantage of age.

Yellen, on the other hand, will be a redshirt sophomore in 2021, the same class as Beville and one year behind Patti but with some game experience. He would also be in his second year of working with Whipple (assuming, you know, no OC changes between now and then) so it would be a pretty even battle among those three, at least in terms of those elements.

The other big impact of Yellen transferring to Pitt is more immediate, because it instantly takes away any pressure to land a high school quarterback in the current recruiting class.

We’ve talked about this a lot: the class Pitt signed in December did not include any quarterbacks, and we’ve been discussing the topic since the summer, asking the simple question of whether Pitt would or should sign a high school quarterback prospect.

With the addition of one transfer, that question has been answered. There is absolutely no need to sign a quarterback in this class, especially if that means reaching for one that the staff isn’t completely sold on. Now, Whipple could find a guy he really likes and offer him and sign him in February; I’m not ruling that out because anything is possible. But a week or two ago, it looked like that would be a priority for the January recruiting period; now it’s a luxury.

So yeah, there’s a lot to like about Pitt getting Joey Yellen. He checks a lot of boxes, as they say. And that QB competition in 2021 is going to be really, really interesting.