In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about Pitt’s defensive backs, the recent history of quarterbacks, the potential for a 2020 season and more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Saying what needs to be said
We probably won’t spend too much more time talking about society’s issues and statements on those issues in this weekly column, because it’s just a lowly sports column. But there was another Pitt-related development on that front this week and it merits a mention.

Last week, Pat Narduzzi broke his silence on the unrest engulfing the nation and the racial divides behind it with a tweet that, I thought, was fairly well-constructed. It accounted for his earlier silence and made some strong statements about the situation.

But that wasn’t the end of the matter. Following Narduzzi’s tweet, former Pitt linebacker Elias Reynolds made comments on Twitter and in an interview with The Athletic that called into question the sincerity of Narduzzi’s words and the authenticity of his actions.

Those comments put the onus back on Narduzzi, who probably hoped he was done making public comments on the topic. Instead, the Pitt coach was faced with three options:

Stay silent and don’t respond to Reynolds’ allegations; meet with reporters and answer questions about it; or issue a statement addressing the matter.

Wisely, Narduzzi chose the third option there and put this out via press release on Tuesday:

The key takeaway for me is what Narduzzi portrays in that statement. It’s a very specific story of a coach listening to his players, appreciating their perspective and adjusting his own conduct to reflect that perspective.

He didn’t understand his players’ perspectives before, but once he gained an understanding, he changed his own perspective.

If you could boil down so much of what is happening in this country right now to a few key points, that would be one of them: too many people don’t have enough respect for the perspectives and experiences of others. It’s empathy, and in my view, that’s a value that is considerably lacking right now.

With that statement, Narduzzi expressed empathy, and that might be the perfect expression to make.

“I don’t know your perspective; share it with me so I can adjust my own perspective.”

That’s what Narduzzi needed to say and he said it. More importantly, that’s what Narduzzi needed to do, and until we hear otherwise, I’m going to assume that he did it.

A positive step
Moving more toward actual football here, I have to say that my optimism about there being actual football this season is growing, and something that happened this week helped spur that growth.

No, it wasn’t Pitt’s players moving to campus, which happened over a couple days early in the week. I mean, that was a positive, for sure; you can’t have a season without players.

But I’ve also said a bunch of times that I don’t think you can have a season of college football if you don’t have college - real, live, on-campus college. Not remote learning from home but college in Oakland. In my opinion, you can’t tell student-athletes they have to come to campus when you’re also telling the rest of the students that they can’t come to campus.

So that’s where my focus has been. I’ve been watching the University of Pittsburgh’s actions and movements and plans as much as I’ve been watching the Pitt football program’s actions and movements and plans.

Yes, the football program has to be ready to play, but it’s all for naught if there’s no fall semester.

As such, the biggest news of the week, from my perspective at least, was not the arrival of the players. It was the University’s announcement of an adjusted fall calendar.

In the announcement, which came on Monday, Pitt said that the semester will start on Aug. 19, five days earlier than the originally-scheduled start date. What follows after that is a compressed schedule of sorts during which the University will have classes on Labor Day and not take any extended breaks until the semester ends on Nov. 20.

That means everyone will be done before Thanksgiving, and while there are accommodations being made to adjust for some remote instruction, the plan seems to be that Pitt will have students on campus.

And I think that’s a big step toward having football games in the fall.

Now, a lot can change between now and August, of course. The next month will be really interesting as COVID-19 numbers start to reflect - or not - the larger gatherings we’ve seen in the last few weeks. Our perspective on the situation could change considerably by the end of July, so nothing is written in stone.

But as long as Pitt stays on track for having college in the fall, I’m going to remain confident about a college football season in the fall.

Two more in the class
When you write a weekly column like this one, sometimes you have to take a minute and think back on what has happened in the last week.

That gets a little tougher these days when a day feels like a week and a week feels like a month, and it’s especially true when I think back on the last week, since Pitt added two more commitments to the 2021 class last Friday - roughly 12 hours after the 3-2-1 Column was published.

Those commitments missed the deadline for last week’s column, but we can address them here.

The first was Stephon Hall, a safety prospect from Central Valley who piled up more than 100 tackles last season and should be a great fit for Pitt’s defense. He did raise some eyebrows when he sent a tweet on Monday that said his recruitment was “100% open;” he quickly deleted the tweet and said that he was simply talking about being open to taking visits, but I’m guessing Pat Narduzzi and the Pitt staff will have some discussions with him about those plans.

Hall is the second safety to commit to Pitt in the 2021 class, joining Imhotep standout Javon McIntyre. And later Friday evening, the Panthers landed another defensive back in Atlanta (Ga.) Riverwood cornerback Khalil Anderson.

I think Anderson could be a real steal for Pitt. He has Power Five offers from Duke, Kansas, Kansas State, Michigan State, Syracuse and Wake Forest, and his final decision came down to Pitt and Michigan State. But when you watch his film, you see a 5’11” 175-pound corner who seems to have a great feel for the game.

Anderson said that Pitt cornerbacks coach Archie Collins praised his “football IQ,” and I think you can see it. You can see his awareness on the field, how he anticipates the quarterback’s movements and finds the spots on the field where the receivers are going. And like fellow Pitt cornerback commit Noah Biglow, he has a knack for getting to the ball.

Biglow’s highlight tape starts with eight interceptions; Anderson doesn’t quite have that many, but he’s got a great feel for finding the ball and making a play on it. There can be considerable luck involved in getting interceptions, but a good defensive back can go a long way in making his own luck by having a feel for the game and knowing how to put himself in position to make plays.

Biglow has that and Anderson might have even more of it. I suspect Pitt is going to have to fight to hold onto Anderson over the next six months.

So that’s two more additions to Pitt’s 2021 recruiting class, bringing the total to 16. As we’ve said, this class is going to be large one for the Panthers, with the final tally likely pushing 23 or 24. If they have eight spots left, I would expect the coaches to try for at least two tight ends (don’t laugh; they need two), two more cornerbacks (more on that in a second), two more defensive linemen and one more linebacker, plus one more lineman (offense or defense) or possibly another receiver. And I can’t rule out the coaches going for broke and signing 25. This is a big class.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

How did that happen?
This isn’t a new topic here, but it ties in with what we were just talking about.

Why would Pitt need four cornerbacks in this class? Doesn’t that seem like a lot?

It does seem like a lot. And it also seems like something close to necessary. Why? Because of the roster.

Sometimes I look at Pitt’s cornerback roster and I’m kind of surprised. I never really forget that the Panthers aren’t deep this year, but we’re all very comfortable praising this staff’s recruiting of defensive backs, and yet this season’s roster doesn’t necessarily reflect that.

This isn’t to say that the coaches have done a poor job recruiting defensive backs. Last year’s secondary was made up of Dane Jackson, Damarri Mathis, Jason Pinnock, Paris Ford and Damar Hamlin; it would not be a surprise if all five of those guys are getting paid to play football in 2021, and they were all recruited and developed by this staff.

So yes, they have done a good job recruiting defensive backs. But with virtually no experience behind those guys I just mentioned, this year’s secondary looks thin. High-end talent at the top, but thin.

I understand that it’s college football and you’re going to have years at each position where the depth is not what you would like it to be, where the stars align - or misalign, if we’re going with a negative connotation - and one spot or another is a question mark heading into a season.

That’s natural. It’s part of the game and it’s part of the cyclical nature of the sport. But how did cornerback, of all positions, become an issue for Pitt in 2020?

As always, we go to the recruiting. The 2016 recruiting class is the one that should provide the redshirt seniors for the 2020 roster, and there’s a whole lot of nothing there. In 2016, Pitt signed four players who projected to play corner: Damar Hamlin, George Hill, Henry Miller and Therran Coleman.

You already know the answer there. Hamlin is the only one who is still on the roster and he’s playing safety.

The 2017 class was better: that was the class of Mathis and Pinnock. But the 2018 class, which should be providing the bulk of the depth on this year’s roster, is a big question mark. Pitt signed three corners that year: Judson Tallandier, Marquis Williams and V’Lique Carter. Williams has played a little but not close to what you would call significant snaps. Tallandier hasn’t played on defense at all. And Carter transferred this offseason.

From the three oldest recruiting classes on the roster, then, Pitt has exactly two cornerbacks with any meaningful experience.

That’s not a great situation. And the low numbers are why the coaches are starting all three freshman defensive backs - Jahvante Royal, Hunter Sellers and Rashad Battle - at corner, even though one, two or all three of them could end up moving to safety.

By now, you should be asking yourself if four cornerbacks in the 2021 recruiting class will be enough and if the coaches should try to find room for a fifth.

Is this bad?
Because it seems bad…

This topic occurred to me during the podcast this week, and it stuck with me so here it is in the column. It’s a trivia question:

Who was the last Pitt quarterback to start multiple seasons for the offensive coordinator who recruited him?

If you listened to the podcast, you already know the answer. If you didn’t, let’s go down the list of multi-year starters over the last 20 years.

There’s Kenny Pickett; he was recruited by Matt Canada but has started for Shawn Watson and Mark Whipple. So he’s out. Nate Peterman started two seasons and the first was with Jim Chaney, who recruited him as a graduate transfer. But his second year at Pitt was with Matt Canada, so that’s a no on the “multiple seasons” angle.

Before that, you have to go back to Tino Sunseri another multi-year starter. He was a starter under three different offensive coordinators from 2010-12, and not one of them was Matt Cavanaugh, who recruited Sunseri in the 2008 class. Bill Stull was also recruited by Cavanaugh and started under him in 2008, but Cavanaugh was replaced by Cignetti for the 2009 (to Stull’s benefit).

So we’re back to the pre-Stull era, and that brings us to Tyler Palko. He actually had the same offensive coordinator for multiple seasons when Cavanaugh was on staff in 2005 and 2006. But Palko was recruited by Walt Harris, who was his head coach and coordinator in 2004. So that doesn’t count.

Finally, we get to Rod Rutherford, who was Pitt’s starting quarterback in 2002 and 2003 when the coordinator was Harris, the same coach who recruited him.

(EDIT: Technically, Harris wasn't the offensive coordinator when Rutherford was the starting quarterback or when Rutherford was getting recruited; JD Brookhart was the coordinator in 2002 and 2003 and Steve Mooshagian held the title in 1998. But the offense was Harris' and he effectively ran the system, so we'll count it.)

We had to go back 17 years to find that. 17 years of starting quarterbacks playing for coordinators who didn’t recruit them.

That’s oversimplifying it, of course. Palko played for Harris. Stull played for Cavanaugh, as did Pat Bostick. Tom Savage played for Paul Chryst. Peterman played for Chaney.

But Sunseri, Chad Voytik, Max Browne, Ben DiNucci and Pickett - Pitt’s other starting quarterbacks in those 17 seasons - never started for the coordinator who recruited them.

I can’t really quantify this, but that seems less than ideal. And I’m not sure when the streak will end. Pickett will be a third-year starter this season, and while he will have started for the same coordinator two years in a row - something no Pitt quarterback has done since Palko - it won’t be the coach who recruited him.

On top of that, if Nick Patti or Davis Beville wins the starting job in 2021, they will be working under a coordinator who didn’t recruit them, since they were both recruited by Watson. So pretty much the only way to get a multi-year starter at quarterback who plays for the coordinator who recruited him is for Joey Yellen to win the starting job in 2021 and 2022 and for Whipple to stay at Pitt that long.

Feel free to share that trivia with all your friends.

ONE PREDICTION

We’ll feel okay about linebackers
I think I’ve gone down this road before, but I’m going to hit it again because it’s topical.

Well, it’s topical because I wrote about the linebackers this week as part of our “Anatomy of a Position” series, where we break down the current state of each position on the roster. Here’s the linebacker breakdown, in case you missed it.

As I put that together, I was reminded of what I’ve said and thought about Pitt’s linebackers in 2020 before:

The Panthers have a couple good, experienced outside linebackers but a question mark at middle linebacker and no experienced depth.

Of course, the outside linebackers are Cam Bright and Phil Campbell, who really emerged as quality players last season. The question at middle linebacker is likely to be answered by Chase Pine, but he is a question mark himself: he has experience but hasn’t been able to clinch a starting job yet in his time at Pitt.

Then come the other questions in the depth. Pitt really has nothing behind Campbell, Bright and Pine. Well, I shouldn’t say “nothing;” that’s a bit harsh. But the Panthers don’t have anything in terms of experience. Wendell Davis has played sporadically over the last two seasons. Sirvocea Dennis saw a little time on defense early in 2019. Brandon George played almost all year last fall as a freshman, but that was exclusively on special teams.

Collectively, the linebackers behind Campbell, Bright and Pine have played 35 snaps on defense, and Davis has 31 of those himself.

So yeah, there are a lot of questions about what this group of linebackers will do in 2020. The starters should be anywhere from solid to good, depending on how Pine takes to a full-time job. But the coaches are going to want to rotate linebackers, which means Davis, George, Dennis, Leslie Smith and the rest of the reserves are going to have to be ready to contribute.

In that respect, the linebackers are a little like the cornerbacks: good players on the top line but question marks behind them.

From where I’m sitting, though, the future looks a little better at linebacker than it does at cornerback. The coaches played Sirvocea Dennis on defense last season because they felt confident about him; as a second-year player this year, I think he’ll be even more ready for action. I also like Brandon George, although he may have a better shot at playing time if he lines up at Money linebacker since Wendell Davis will likely be the backup middle linebacker.

I also think the three freshmen - Solomon DeShields, Bangally Kamara and AJ Roberts - have sky-high potential. DeShields is a big athlete who can run, Kamara is a rangier player who fits the hybrid-ish role that is Pitt’s Star linebacker position and Roberts is a fine fit at middle linebacker.

I think the odds are high that one or more of those linebackers gets on the field this season. Special teams would seem like a certainty, but some snaps on defense are possible, too.

All of this is to say that I believe we’re going to come out of the 2020 season feeling better about the future of Pitt’s linebackers than we do going into the season. I think we’ll see enough of some of the younger players to have some optimism about them heading into next season. And with Dennis, George, Smith, DeShields, Kamara and Roberts all being first or second-year players, there should be a good foundation in place for the future.