The 3-2-1 Column: Bouncing back, running the ball and more

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In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about a bounce-back for Pitt’s defense, the issues with the running game and a lot more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

When the world is ending
Here’s the thing…

Wait. I shouldn’t start that way. Typically, when people start off by saying “Here’s the thing” - or, more often, when they say it in response to something they’ve just heard - what they’re really saying is, “You’ve missed the point, so let me tell you what you have failed to see or understand in the hopes that you’ll change your way of thinking in light of this new information.”

I don’t want to say that. Not in this column, at least. Because, I actually don’t think you’ve missed the point.

If you’re sitting back saying the loss to N.C. State was a bad loss, then I think you’re right. If you’re saying that there have been too many bad losses in the last three seasons, then I think you’re right. And if you’re saying that there’s a potential for that game to have exposed certain weaknesses in Pitt’s supposed strengths, then I think you’re right.

But here’s the thing:

That game on Saturday didn’t change the expectations for this season. It didn’t change what this team is, what it did in the first three games or what it should do in the final seven.

What Saturday’s loss to N.C. State did is remind everyone - most importantly, the players and coaches - that they are very capable of shooting themselves in the foot (feet?) and losing in virtually any game.

I think this Pitt team can be pretty good. It’s not without its weaknesses, and we’ll talk about those in a minute, but I think these Panthers have enough strengths to overcome the weaknesses and win a bunch of games this season.

But they are not good enough to take five offsides penalties on the opponent’s first four possessions, miscues that led to 17 points. They’re not good enough to drop multiple passes that would have gained first downs. They’re not good enough to overcome things like that and win consistently.

Sure, they got away with it against Syracuse and Louisville (and more than a few games last season). But if you keep doing those things, if you keep making those mistakes, it will catch up with you. It caught up with Pitt against Miami and Boston College last season, and it caught up with the Panthers again on Saturday.

Miami and Boston College were losses that shouldn’t have happened and could have been avoided if Pitt had just been a little cleaner, a little more focused and disciplined. If the Panthers can get their focus and discipline in order, if they can clean things up, they still win a bunch of games this season.

But they were never going to get away with playing like that every week. They snuck out of the Syracuse and Louisville games with wins despite multiple discipline/focus issues, just like they snuck out of a few games last year under similar circumstances. But if those issues don’t get cleaned up, though, they will cost you games, and that’s what Saturday’s loss said the loudest:

It wasn’t that the defense can be exploited (it can, but I don’t think that will keep happening). It wasn’t that Pitt struggles to run the ball (that’s true, but we didn’t need the N.C. State game to learn that). The lesson of Saturday was that the 2020 Panthers aren’t good enough to get away with self-inflicted errors.

If the coaches and players learned that lesson and improved in those areas, this season can get back on track right quick.

A lot to like
Speaking of getting back on track, Kenny Pickett certainly did that against N.C. State.

After a couple of so-so performances in wins over Syracuse and Louisville, Pickett played really well in the loss to the Wolfpack. He wasn’t perfect, but he did a lot of things well that he hasn’t always done consistently.

The numbers tell the story: 22-of-39, 411 yards, 1 touchdown and no interceptions.

The passing yards were a career high, and Pro Football Focus gave him the highest single-game grade of his career against ACC competition. It was an outstanding performance, and one that built on some key factors I’ve been talking about regarding Pickett for quite some time.

Chief among those was Pickett’s pocket presence, which was a concern for me in the last two seasons. For whatever reason, he hasn’t always seemed to be comfortable when he dropped back to pass. Sometimes, he was under pressure, and that’s understandable. He wasn’t always under pressure, though, but he often reacted as if he was.

Maybe the tackles or the guards would take an extra step back to deal with the defenders, but instead of standing tall and keeping his eyes downfield, Pickett would bring the ball down and start shuffling around in - and eventually out of - the pocket.

I wasn’t sure if that was due to the lack of consistent pass protection he had early in his career or if he just struggled to feel the pressure and make plays against it, but it stood out to me quite a bit. And in the first three games of this season, I saw it again.

Well, I didn’t see it in the Austin Peay game, but in the Syracuse and Louisville games, it was there. PFF says that Pickett was under pressure on 17 of his 46 drop-backs against Louisville (37%) but he seemed to react as if the pressure was coming with far more frequency. That stood out to me as an issue, and I think it inhibited his ability to make throws downfield.

Against N.C. State, Pickett was much better. The Wolfpack pressured him on 15 of his 47 drop-backs, which is 31.9% - less than the Louisville game - but he responded well. Pickett completed 7-of-11 passes for 137 yards on those plays when he was under pressure and had an 80% adjusted completion percentage.

Overall, he just looked more composed in the pocket, and that allowed Pickett to do something that I’ve been calling for over the last few weeks:

Take some shots.

Pickett fired downfield on Saturday, to the tune of 15 attempts of 20 yards or more. He completed nine of those 15 passes for 221 yards and a touchdown - a significant improvement over his 0-for-4 stat line on passes of 20-plus yards vs. Louisville, or the 2-of-3 for 47 yards he had against Syracuse.

Obviously, there’s a volume difference there, with 15 of those passes thrown against N.C. State and just seven in the Syracuse and Louisville games combined, and that’s the other point here: Pitt’s offense worked to stretch the field vertically.

I know I’ve talked about how I think the Panthers need to do a lot more of that and that I think they have the weapons to do it. But Saturday was really the first time this season we’ve seen it happen, and it was successful because Pickett looked good in the pocket.

Boston College will certainly see that on film and look to get heat on Pickett. Through three games, the Eagles have recorded 57 quarterback pressures, per PFF, and they’ll be trying to keep that up on Saturday. Jeff Hafley’s crew will need to do it, because Pickett has shown that if he has time, he can pick a defense apart.

What a fall
It’s kind of crazy how much of a fall Pitt’s running game has experienced in less than 24 months.

One game into October two years ago, the Panthers weren’t in great shape. They had a 3-3 record with a nice home win over Syracuse fresh in their minds, but that wasn’t enough to erase what happened against Penn State, North Carolina and UCF in September.

Still, it was becoming pretty clear that the 2018 Pitt team could at least run the ball. They had 238 yards on the ground against Albany, 245 against PSU, 228 at UNC and 265 in the win over Syracuse.

After that would come such memorable outbursts as the Duke game (484 yards and four touchdowns on 52 rushing attempts) and the crème de la crème, the Virginia Tech game (492 and six scores on 36 carries). The Panthers finished the season with a loss in the Sun Bowl, but they still ran for 208 yards that day against Stanford.

That was 17 games ago, and Pitt hasn’t hit the 200-yard mark in a single game since then.

Now, 200 yards is a lot. You need a pretty effective rushing attack to get to that total, even against lesser competition, so expecting the Panthers to pile up 200-yard games like they did in 2018 (they did it eight times in 14 games) is a little much.

But to go 17 consecutive games without hitting that number seems extreme. They have actually only come within 10 yards of 200 once in that span (they rushed for 196 in the win over UCF last season); the high-water mark after that was 172 against Delaware.

After rushing for at least 100 yards in 13 out of 14 games in 2018, Pitt was held under the century mark six times last season and once already this year. And the Panthers have rushed for less than 150 yards in 11 out of the last 17 games.

I’m sorry. I don’t need to keep hammering away at these stats; I get a little too worked up when I get my notebook out and write down a bunch of numbers. I really could have simply said, “Pitt hasn’t run the ball well since 2018” and left it at that.

Because I think everyone realizes it. But it’s still worth pointing out because it ties directly into this team’s fate for the season.

We’ll talk more in a second about what this team can accomplish if it doesn’t start running the ball better, but the real storyline is how the imbalance on offense is going to make things challenging. Like I said earlier, I think Kenny Pickett can pick a defense apart if he isn’t under pressure. But if Pitt’s struggles with the rushing attack don’t turn around, it’s going to be easier and easier for opponents to tee off on the passing game.

Of course, it’s not like Pitt’s passing game was anything special when it had the most productive rushing attack in school history two years ago. But that’s why Shawn Watson was fired and Mark Whipple was hired: to bring balance to the offense.

Thus far, it’s just as imbalanced - in the other direction.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Can you give up on the run?
Let’s stay with the same topic, because the relevant issue isn’t whether or not Pitt’s running game is working.

It’s obviously not.

The question - since we’re now in the “Two Questions” section of the column - is where the Panthers go from here, after they managed just 92 yards on 37 rushing attempts against N.C. State. More to the point, can Pitt just outright give up on the run game? Is that a viable move in football? Can you survive without any real threat of a rushing attack?

I mean, that’s basically where the Panthers are. They have averaged less than four yards per carry in each of their ACC games this season and were held under three yards per carry in two of those three.

Put it on Mark Whipple. Put it on Dave Borbely. Put it on the running backs. Put it on the offensive linemen. It really doesn’t matter who you choose to blame, because the truth is, every one of those answers is correct.

Could it be Whipple? Sure. He’s got more of a reputation as a pass-oriented play-caller. But Pitt has run the ball 35 times or more in 12 of the 17 games with Whipple as offensive coordinator, so it’s not a total lack of commitment.

Could it be Borbely? Sure. He has been with the team for three years now, and the linemen and blocking schemes should be better-developed than they seem to be. But he was also the line coach in 2018 when the Panthers’ run game was a strength of the team.

Could it be the backs? Sure. Out of all the running backs on the roster, A.J. Davis is the only one with a 100-yard game on his resume, and that came last season at Syracuse. Vincent Davis is Pitt’s No. 1 back this season and the best he’s done was 69 yards in the bowl game last season. And the rest of the backs are either inexperienced (Israel Abanikanda and Daniel Carter) or not highly-valued by the coaching staff (Todd Sibley).

At the same time, the fate of the running backs relies in large part on the play of the offensive line, and that group has not been good this season, to put it lightly. Re-watching the N.C. State game, it’s tough to find much in the way of openings for the backs to hit.

But we’re not talking about why the running game has struggled; we’re talking about how it could affect Pitt’s ceiling. So let’s look at last season.

In 2019, the Panthers averaged 118.8 rushing yards per game; that was the lowest average of any FBS team that won at least eight games. The lowest rushing average for a team that won at least nine games was Virginia’s 121.2 yards per game.

I like nine wins as a good bar for what constitutes a successful season. It seems to me that if you can get to nine wins, you had a good year. In 2019, there were 33 teams that won at least nine games; only four of them averaged less than 150 rushing yards per game.

The other 45 teams that averaged less than 150 rushing yards per game were not as successful; only 14 of them - Pitt included - managed to win more than they lost.

Put that all together now: 49 teams in FBS averaged less than 150 rushing yards per game. 18 of them had winning records. Only four won nine or more games.

So it’s not entirely impossible to have success with an ineffective running game, but it’s pretty damn difficult.

How much can be blamed on the injuries?
This is a repeat from last week, at least topically, but it’s still relevant - or maybe even more - so this week.

A week ago, I asked how many more injuries Pitt could survive. I suppose the word “survive” is operative there, since Pitt didn’t actually survive against N.C. State. Then again, I can’t sit here and say that injuries were the biggest issue in that loss.

They were an issue, though, and the number of walking wounded increased in that game, which is particularly troubling.

Specifically, losing Jordan Addison, Keyshon Camp and Cam Bright hurt quite a bit. Enough to lose the game? No, probably not. But Pitt certainly has a better chance of winning with Addison and Camp an d Bright than it does without them.

So Addison, Camp and Bright get added to a list that includes A.J. Davis, Lucas Krull, Wendell Davis, Jared Wayne, Habakkuk Baldonado and Kyi Wright. None of those six guys played on Saturday, and their status going forward is up in the air.

If we include Addison, Camp and Bright with that group, you’re looking at six starters and three top reserves who didn’t play against N.C. State or got hurt and didn’t finish the game. That’s a lot of guys, and we can even include Daniel Carter, who has been considerably limited in the last two games, and Gabe Houy, who left the Louisville game with an injury and then split time with Carson Van Lynn at right tackle against N.C. State.

Either way, it’s a lot of guys. I don’t know if I’d pick any one of them and say “Not having him cost Pitt the game” (Bright is probably the most likely to have affected the outcome). Taken as a whole, though, it’s a large group, and when you have that many players from the two-deep standing on the sidelines, you start digging into the depth.

And when you start digging into the depth, you run into trouble. Because then your depth players, who you were willing to rely on for a series or a handful of snaps here and there, become your every-down players, and your third-teamers become the next guys in line.

That’s when the quality of play drops and the margin for error shrinks.

Like I said, I asked last week how many more injuries Pitt could sustain, and the Panthers put that to the test with Addison, Camp and Bright leaving the N.C. State game. I really don’t think they can suffer too many more without a serious drop-off.

Seriously, and without hyperbole, I look at both sides of the ball right now and I don’t see one position group where I would currently say, “That depth situation is strong enough to absorb another injury.” The walking wounded are at max capacity, and Pitt needs that list to start shrinking, not continuing to grow.

ONE PREDICTION

The defense will bounce back
I’m pretty confident about this one actually, but I understand if you have some doubts.

Look, one of the biggest reasons I think the N.C. State loss has resonated so much with Pitt fans is that it showed some frightening weaknesses. And what’s worse, those weaknesses look all too familiar.

We talked about the running game; it looked just as ineffective as it did a year ago. And there was the sloppiness that led to 13 total penalties; again, that was reminiscent of the way Pitt put a lot of games in jeopardy last season.

But the defense…that was worrisome. For a few drives, it felt like 2016 all over again. As Devin Leary dropped floaters over Pitt’s defensive backs at various points in the game, I thought I was watching him execute Jerod Evans’ approach with Bucky Hodges, Isaiah Ford and Cam Phillips.

It wasn’t quite to that extreme, but the basic philosophy was the same: take advantage of a size mismatch to create a favorable set of outcomes (often either a completed pass or a pass interference penalty).

That was concerning to see. The defense is the strength of this team, and if your strength gets exposed and becomes a weakness…well, then you have no strength, and if you have no strength, it’s going to be tough to win games.

But I don’t expect Pitt’s defense to become a weakness. As a matter of fact, I expect that group to get back to where it was playing to start the season, and I believe that for a few reasons.

For starters, I actually don’t think the Panthers were as bad as they seemed to be against the Wolfpack. Yes, Leary had a really good game. 28-of-44, 336 yards, 4 touchdowns - that’s good by any measure.

But Pitt also did a whole lot to hurt its own cause. For instance, N.C. State scored 17 points on its first three drives, but all three were aided by offsides penalties on Pitt’s defense. There were two on the first drive; one turned second-and-6 into second-and-1 (which ultimately got converted as a third-and-1) and another turned second-and-5 into a first down.

The next drive, Pitt cut five yards off a second-and-7 for a makeable second-and-2 on an offsides call. That possession resulted in a field goal. And on the third drive, an offsides penalty on SirVocea Dennis changed third-and-6 (a good situation for Pitt) into third-and-1 (a good situation for N.C. State). The third down was converted and the Wolfpack got a touchdown from the drive.

17 points on three possessions is a strong way to open a game, but when you get four offsides calls (not to mention two pass interference penalties and a facemask), it’s not all a credit to the offense.

Clean up some of those penalties and Pitt’s defensive performance looks a little different, I think. Really, it’s just the offsides penalties: make N.C. State convert some longer third downs instead of third-and-1 and second-and-2, and the Panthers’ chances of getting off the field increase significantly.

Because here’s the other thing: Pitt’s defense is still pretty good. They didn’t magically forget how to play defense overnight, and Tim Beck is not such an offensive savant that he figured out the keys to beating the ACC’s No. 1 defense when so many other coaches struggled to do so.

Pitt’s defense had a bad day. They were sloppy at the start and they gave up plays in crucial situations in the fourth quarter. But one bad game doesn’t totally cancel out the good games they have played, both last season and in the first three contests this year, and maybe that loss put a little extra spark in this defense. Maybe they needed a little bit of a wakeup call.

Well, they got it. And now they’ll face a Boston College offense that has put up some passing yards (No. 20 nationally in passing offense) but not a ton of points (26, 24 and 22 in three games this season). The Eagles are also giving up 3.7 sacks per game, so I’m looking for Pitt’s defense to get back on track.