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In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about fixing Pitt’s offense, holding onto commitments, starting the hoops season with a win and a lot more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

That’s a big number
So I started adding some numbers together this week, and I came up with something pretty stark.

Follow along:

Through nine games, Pitt has thrown nine interceptions. That’s bad, right? Well, let’s start there and add some more numbers to it.

Like four fumbles lost. That’s bad, too, and that’s how many Pitt has lost on offense. We won’t include special teams since offense is the focus here, so we’ll leave out Maurice Ffrench’s fumbled punt returns against Ohio and Syracuse and Paris Ford’s fumbled punt return against Duke. Let’s just talk offense.

Through nine games, Pitt’s offense has four lost fumbles. But the Panthers have also fumbled four other times and recovered them, so we’ll include those, too, because they fall into something we’re going to explore.

So let’s go with eight fumbles and nine interceptions. That’s 17 in nine games, which is a pretty big number. But we’re not done yet, because we’re not just talking turnovers and I bet you know what’s next:

The drops.

According to Pro Football Focus, Pitt’s pass-catchers have failed to live up to that title on 27 occasions this season. That’s a really big number - three per game through nine games. Nakia Griffin-Stewart, of course, leads the way with seven, but Taysir Mack and Maurice Ffrench have four each (seems like it should be more, doesn’t it?) and the other 12 are spread over six players.

Let’s add that together: 9 interceptions + 8 fumbles + 27 drops = 44.

I think we need a title for this now. Let’s go with “mistakes.” Or maybe “correctable mistakes,” if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.

Let’s keep going with that most obvious addition to this study: penalties. In nine games, Pitt’s offense has been called for 30 penalties, but I’m feeling gracious, so we won’t hold all of those against the Panthers in this particular exercise. Like Will Gragg’s illegal block at Duke or that time Ffrench went out of bounds and came back in against the Blue Devils; I won’t include those. I won’t even include Ffrench’s conduct penalty at Duke or Gragg’s facemask against UCF. And I’ll leave holding out of this, too, because I’m trying to focus as much as I can on the most obvious correctable mistakes.

Like false start penalties. That’s an easy one, right? Stay focused, listen to the cadence and get off the line of scrimmage with the snap. That shouldn’t be too tough - except Pitt has been called for a false start penalty 17 times this season.

We’ll throw in a pair of illegal shift penalties for the whole procedure enchilada and bring the total of correctable penalties to 19.

Now let’s add it up:

9 interceptions + 8 fumbles + 27 drops + 19 penalties = 63 correctable mistakes.

That’s seven times per game that Pitt’s offensive players lost focus, didn’t pay enough attention to details, didn’t put enough emphasis on doing the things you have to do to win games and cost the team yards, possessions or a chance at points.

Those false starts get me. 12 of the 17 were at home. At home! How does that happen? It’s a lack of focus, and I think that’s a problem overall here. Dropping passes, fumbling, committing penalties - these things come from a lack of focus, and I think a lot of Pitt’s problems on offense come back to that area.

Maybe it’s too late in the season to take a big step forward in this regard. But when your offense is making, on average, seven correctable mistakes per game…that seems problematic.

Offensive optimism
So, I have a funny perspective on things sometimes. I don’t know if there’s a natural contrarian bent (there probably is) or just a desire to see two sides (or more) to everything, but I look at those offensive error numbers and a couple things stick out to me:

One, those numbers are obviously awful. I don’t need to repeat that or emphasize it; you make that many mistakes and it doesn’t matter how much talent you have - life is going to be difficult. To some extent, it’s remarkable that Pitt has overcome that level of ineffectiveness and pure bad play to win six out of its first six games.

That’s probably a testament to the defense. Actually, there’s no “probably” about it - it’s entirely a testament to the defense that the Panthers have averaged seven correctable errors per game on offense and still won six.

But I digress.

The other thing that sticks out about those numbers (and here’s where the contrarian/look-at-both-sides thing comes in) is that there’s a key word in that “correctable errors” stat:

Correctable.

You probably know where I’m going with this, so I’ll offer this caveat first: many teams have lost many games while committing correctable errors and never correcting them, so I’m not going to skip too far down this road. I’m not going to operate on the assumption that Pitt will correct those errors in the final three regular-season games. I know the Panthers can correct them; that’s why they’re called “correctable.” But I’m not going to assume they will correct them.

Still, the mere possibility of correcting those errors is encouraging, because it’s not about talent, it’s not about ability, it’s not about somehow becoming a better player than you are. Pitt’s offensive players can still be who they are and perform much, much better by simply correcting some of those mistakes.

Like false starts. There aren’t many explanations for a team taking 17 false start penalties in nine games other than focus. You just have to be more focused. That’s not about talent or how well these guys can pass-block; it’s just focus. The same goes for the drops: with the vast majority of Pitt’s dropped passes this season, it’s just a matter of focus. Be more focused, pay attention to what you’re trying to do and why you’re trying to do it, and the results can improve.

Pitt has had 63 of those plays this season, but that doesn’t mean the Panthers have to keep up that average of seven per game over the final three contests. If they just cut down on some of those correctable errors, I believe the difference can be striking. We’ve all talked about those times when a key drop killed a drive, and I think there’s some truth to the idea that the offense is that close to being much more effective

Like the Syracuse game. It’s not a one-touchdown game if Nakia Griffin-Stewart catches a third-down pass near the goal line in the second half. That likely sets up a touchdown that puts the game out of reach. It’s not asking too much for a fifth-year senior to catch that pass, and that really was the difference between a one-touchdown almost-a-nail-biter and a much more comfortable win.

We can do that with just about every game Pitt has played. The losses can turn to wins and the close wins can turn to comfortable wins, if not full-on blowouts. I know there’s no value in hypotheticals - every team with a losing record can rationalize its losses - and it ultimately doesn’t matter if they don’t correct these things.

But the issues I’m talking about - fumbles, drops, procedure penalties - are not insurmountable. These are simple things that can be corrected, and if Pitt can actually do that, if the Panthers can be just a little more focused, I really think there could be a considerable turnaround in the offensive performance.

It doesn’t have to be drastic, but considering that two of Pitt’s three losses have come by a touchdown or less, getting into the end zone just once more per game could make a big impact.

The inevitable happened
We’ve been saying it for five months now, and really, it dates back further than that. But we’ll say it again:

There was always going to be a decommit or two from Pitt’s 2020 recruiting class. It was always going to happen. When you get that many commitments that early in the process, the odds say you’re going to lose one or two along the way. That’s especially true when you don’t have an official visit to use on those recruits since they visited in June; in previous years, coaches would get June commits, hold off other schools until December and then bring the kids back on campus for an official visit to lock the commitment in.

Now, with the new spring official visit period that has been in place for the last two years, the situation is different. You get kids on campus in June and land a bunch of commitments out of the visits, but then you have to fight like crazy to hold onto them through the summer, the fall and into the next big official visit period in early December before Signing Day.

Last year, Pitt lost Brandon Mack and Khadry Jackson from the June commitment list; this year, the number of lost recruits is at one after Georgia cornerback Tee Denson decommitted on Thursday.

That’s not a huge surprise. Denson’s recruitment was picking up steam this fall and he seemed to be welcoming the attention quite a bit (it’s worth noting that as soon as he announced his decommitment, Denson also announced that he had a new top three and an official visit scheduled).

So Denson’s the first, and if the odds play out as they usually do, he probably won’t be the last. Running back Henry Parrish has blown up this fall and already took one official visit; Charlie Partridge is working hard to hold onto Parrish, but the competition is stiff.

And then there’s Timothy Brown, the defensive tackle who ran into some serious legal issues last month. He’s still on Pitt’s commitment list for now as the staff lets the situation play out, but if initial reports are accurate, Brown is probably not going to be signing with the Panthers in December.

Brown is a different kind of situation, though. Denson and last year’s pair of decommitments are more of what’s to be expected: recruits who take official visits in June, commit and then rethink those pledges later in the year when other options present themselves.

The Pitt coaches know the equation here, and they know that they’re probably never going to hold onto all of their June commits in the current system. As such, their goal is probably to hold on to all but two or three, and if they get to the day after Signing Day with everybody other than Denson, Parrish and Brown signed, that will be a pretty good class. Really good, in fact. Parrish is a talented running back, but Israel Abanikanda, the Panthers’ other tailback commit, is no chump; he’s legit.

Plus, Pitt has two really good receivers committed in Jordan Addison and Jaylon Barden; those two guys have a real shot at getting on the field and contributing next season.

This is shaping up to be Pat Narduzzi’s best recruiting class at Pitt, whether it gets signed with or without Denson and Parrish and Brown. Those guys were good players who bolstered the class, but they aren’t the only good prospects who committed to Pitt in June.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

How much do we take from that game?
I think we always ask that question after the first game of the season - at least, we do in most years. When football opens with a win over an FCS team or basketball opens with a win against a similarly-overmatched nonconference opponent, we ask the question:

How much can we take from that win?

And I’m asking it again in the wake of Pitt’s 63-61 win over Florida State on Wednesday night at the Petersen Events Center - but not for the same reasons. This wasn’t a case of the Panthers looking like world-beaters against a lesser opponent; on the contrary, this was a case of the Panthers looking like a gritty, fairly talented team who out-toughed a pretty tough opponent to get a conference win in the season opener.

Except we all know that the Pitt we saw on Wednesday night and the Florida State we saw on Wednesday night are very different from the Panthers and Seminoles we’re going to see in a month or two months or three months.

It was the season opener, and as coaches throughout the ACC will tell you, it was a long way from the closer-to-finished product they hope their teams will be when they enter conference play full-time in January.

So there are a couple schools of thought on that game. For starters, and most importantly, it counts as an ACC win. Pitt is 1-0 in conference play. That’s pretty good and can’t really be overstated. And no matter what FSU looked like on Wednesday night, the Seminoles are an athletic, talented team with length. They’re a challenge for Pitt, even though the Panthers have now beaten them twice in the last 11 months, and starting the season with a win over Leonard Hamilton’s squad is pretty impressive.

At the same time, though, neither team looked like it was ready for primetime. Jeff Capel called it “an ugly game,” and he wasn’t wrong. Nobody shot very well and there was a lot of sloppiness on both ends of the court. And while I fully realize that this Pitt team is going to have to win games “ugly” throughout the season, Wednesday night was a particular brand of ugliness that can be best described as “first-game-of-the-season-ugly.”

There’s a fine line in there somewhere, a balance between making too much of the win over FSU and making too little of it. It was an ACC win. But it was also a game where neither team looked like it was really ready for an opponent of that caliber. So we have to find some middle ground in our takeaways from the game.

Here are a few of mine:

- One of the key storylines all season will be Terrell Brown’s effort, energy and focus. If he plays with those things, he can be a good ACC center. If he doesn’t, he’ll disappear. On Wednesday night, he was playing that way - Capel called it the best game Brown has played since Capel got to Pitt - and he had a big impact on the outcome of the game, especially in the final 12 minutes.

- In the first half, it looked like Pitt’s freshman trio of Justin Champagnie, Gerald Drumgoole and Karim Coulibaly wasn’t going to make much of an impact. That didn’t change after halftime for Drumgoole or Coulibaly (who didn’t play at all), but it did for Champagnie; he settled in and became a key piece of the win as Capel opted to keep him on the court for the final 11:52, and Champagnie responded with a team-high eight points and grabbed three defensive rebounds in that stretch. Drumgoole and Coulibaly will come along; Champagnie took a big step toward being there.

- Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens may make improvements to the secondary elements in their games (namely, shooting) but those two guys have a pretty particular skill set that is really effective when they are on. As Terrell Brown said after the game Wednesday night, “they can get in the lane whenever they want.” And when that happens, good things tend to follow - finish in the paint, free throws or, if this team evolves in the next two months, a dish to the outside for an open shot.

- And that brings us to Ryan Murphy, who made his Pitt debut Wednesday night and tied for the team high with 13 points. He hit three of his six three-point attempts, and while Pitt will need and want to see the volume come up, he showed what he can do: find him open and he will drain the three with regularity. That was probably one of the things Pitt didn’t do enough in the season opener, but as the team continues to get more comfortable in this offense, I think they’ll find him even more.

I almost had to catch myself there. For a second, as I was typing about what Pitt did in the season opener and what they can do going forward, I thought to myself, “Yeah, but it’s just the opener; don’t make too big of a deal about it.” But then I remembered that it wasn’t just any opener: it was an opener against Florida State, so you know what? We can make a big deal about it. Nobody is a finished product, but the starting product for Pitt looks like it’s got some nice potential.

Is this the hidden storyline?
It’s probably not that hidden, but as we all talk about the FSU win and Terrell Brown’s energy and Justin Champagnie’s debut and Ryan Murphy’s potential contributions and Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens being Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens, I think there’s one other thing that has to get mentioned regarding that season opener:

Rebounding.

Pitt finished +2 on the glass Wednesday night, and that’s not an insignificant number. Last year the Panthers won the rebounding battle just 11 times in 33 games. Only five of those 11 were ACC games; Syracuse was two of those five but FSU wasn’t. The Seminoles outrebounded the Panthers the last time they came to the Petersen Events Center, and that’s not a surprise, since they have a pretty good advantage in size and length.

But on Wednesday night, the numbers went for Pitt, and Jeff Capel, for one, was more than pleased with that result.

“Really happy,” Capel said after the game. “I thought that was the key of the game.”

That’s probably not a hyperbole. FSU had just six second-chance points, only two of which came in the second half as the Panthers gave up just four offensive rebounds after halftime. Meanwhile, Pitt grabbed seven offensive boards in the second half and produced seven second-chance points as a result.

And the efforts were spread. McGowens had a team-high seven boards and Johnson grabbed six. Champagnie had six as well (three in the final 12 minutes), and every other player who stepped onto the court recorded at least one rebound. It was a team effort with the guards leading the way, as McGowens, Johnson and Murphy combined for 17 rebounds in the game.

“I think it’s come a long way,” Capel said of the guards’ rebounding mentality. “I think we’ve also recruited and we have some new guys in here that have a little bit different athleticism to them. I think the returning guys, they’ve heard it enough and we’ve drilled it a lot and I think they understand, that’s what wins basketball games. I think our first-shot defense last year was pretty good, but our inability to rebound really hurt us. I thought our first-shot defense tonight was pretty good and I thought in the second half especially, even though they shot 50%, I thought we did a much better job on the glass throughout the 40 minutes of the game.”

Getting Johnson and McGowens active on the glass is going to be important as Pitt continues to try to find rebounding production from the front court. The Panthers’ centers - Brown and starter Eric Hamilton - came up with just six boards, and while five of those six were on the offensive end, more is certainly needed in that regard.

Still, the group effort was key and getting multiple players to chip in will be exactly what this team needs going forward. I’m assuming they’ll win the rebounding battle more than they did last year (Pitt got outrebounded 19 times and tied in rebounds with Youngstown State, Troy and Clemson). The Panthers may not be dominant on the glass, but a greater commitment to it from every player on the court can go a long way.

ONE PREDICTION

I’m not going to do it. I swear. I’m not.

You know what I’m talking about.

This is the last 3-2-1 Column before next Thursday’s game against North Carolina. So this is the final prediction section of a 3-2-1 Column prior to Pitt hosting North Carolina, and the temptation is strong. Really strong.

You know which temptation I’m referring to: the temptation to predict a Pitt victory.

It’s agonizingly tempting, but I should have learned my lesson by now. This column is in its third year, and in each of the previous two falls, I have predicted a Pitt win over North Carolina. It made more sense in those years - UNC came to Heinz Field in 2017 with a 1-8 record; last year the Tar Heels were 0-2 and would finish 2-9, beating just Pitt and Western Carolina.

I predicted wins in each of those seasons and I was wrong in each of those seasons. This year, UNC is 4-5 overall - a losing record but still more wins after nine games than either of the last two Tar Heel squads produced in a full season. Mack Brown is back for his second stint as head coach at UNC, but more importantly, the Tar Heels have an outstanding freshman quarterback. In nine games, Sam Howell has thrown for 2,472 yards, 26 touchdowns and just five picks.

That’s a big problem this year, especially since Pitt lost the last two seasons to Nathan Elliott, who averaged 274 yards and threw for four touchdowns and no interceptions in two games against the Panthers but averaged 163 yards and had an 11:12 TD:INT ratio in the other 11 games he played against Power Five competition.

Pitt made Elliott look like a star, and Elliott wasn’t near the player Howell has been this season. That’s troubling, and Howell isn’t doing it alone: he’s got a stable of playmakers who have been really, really good this season.

Upside: Pitt’s defense is much, much better this season. Quantifiably and objectively better. It’s really been a trend since last season, as we’ve documented quite a few times. Since the Panthers got past a nasty trip to Orlando in 2018, they’ve on a roll, defensively speaking. In the last 18 games - dating back to that loss at UCF - Pitt’s defense is holding its opponents, on average, 8.3 points below their season average for scoring.

If you push the date forward a couple weeks to get past the wild 54-45 Duke game, the numbers improve: in the last 15 games, the Panthers have held opponents to 10 points below their season average.

That’s a really good streak, and the only team to outscore its average during that run was Duke this year; the Blue Devils scored 30 against Pitt but recently saw their season average drop to 29.5 points per game, so that’s how close it is: 0.5 points.

But of course we know that the UCF game wasn’t Pitt’s only bad defensive performance last season. The week before that trip to Orlando, the Panthers were in Chapel Hill where the obvious outcome occurred: Pitt couldn’t stop UNC and the Panthers lost 38-35.

It was too predictable. Which is why I’m having such a hard time predicting a win this time around.

Okay, here’s the best thing I’ve got: for awhile I thought that Marquise Williams was the problem, but then Pitt lost to UNC after he left. So then I thought that Mitch Trubisky was the problem, or maybe Ryan Switzer, but then those guys left and the Panthers lost the next two games to the Tar Heels.

So what was the common thread in the losses if it wasn’t those players?

Maybe it was Larry Fedora. He’s no longer on the sidelines for UNC; maybe it was him who cost Pitt all of those games dating back to 2013. Maybe replacing Fedora with Mack Brown will be the change the Panthers need to finally get a win.

Yes. That’s it. I’m going with that. Now that Fedora is gone, Pitt will finally get over the hump against UNC. The defense will be strong again but give up some points - maybe in the 20’s - and the offense will have just enough success - maybe 30 or 31 points - and pull out a close one at Heinz Field.

I have to get this right one of these years.

Pitt has to get this right one of these years.