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We’re thinking a lot about Pitt’s defense in this week’s 3-2-1 Column. Which positions are strong? Which need to step up? And how good can the unit be?

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Expecting more
So yeah, we’re going to spend some time talking about the defense today.

We’ve spent so much time dissecting the offense, from trying to figure out the issues last season to trying to figure out how they can solve those issues in the offseason to trying to figure out what impact Mark Whipple will have now and in the coming season.

We’ve talked about Kenny Pickett. We’ve talked about the playmakers. We’ve talked about known receivers and unknown running backs. We’ve even sometimes talked about tight ends. And we’ve definitely talked about the offensive line.

We’ll probably talk about all of those things again, maybe as soon as next week and certainly a bunch between now and the start of the season.

But the defense…we’ve talked about the defense, but not nearly as much as the offense, and it’s usually something along the lines of, “Well, the defense should be solid/good/okay but it will really come down to the offense.”

It’s like the defense is an afterthought, but it shouldn’t be. Because for four years running now, Pitt’s defense has been, how do you say, less than was expected when Pat Narduzzi was hired.

Now, there are about a million caveats in there, ranging from the differences between the Big Ten and the ACC to the fact that Pitt’s defense has had stretches of solid play in every season under Narduzzi (okay, maybe not 2016, but the other three).

But still, don’t you think there are expectations for Pitt’s defense to be “more” than it has been in recent years?

More effective.

More dominant.

More game-changing.

Now, it has definitely gotten harder to play “shutdown” defense in college football. Offenses are explosive around college football, and while we could take a major divergence here into a discussion of whether Pitt has followed that trend enough, we’ll instead stay focused on the topic:

It’s tougher to stop offenses these days. In 2018, 57 teams in FBS averaged at least 30 points per game; 10 years ago, only 36 teams averaged that much. And a year later, only 33 hit that number.

Pitt’s challenge was even greater: of the 57 teams who averaged 30 points per game in 2018, seven were on the Panthers’ schedule - more than half of the FBS teams Pitt faced. So it’s not going to be easy for the Panthers to move into the “shutdown” category, but some steps in that direction would be positive.

How much can/should we expect from Pitt’s defense in 2019? Your guess is as good as mine. But I don’t think it’s too much to expect at least a little more from the group.

Still not sure
I’ve asked the question before. I know I have.

Who are the playmakers?

I’ve asked that about the team in general and the defense in particular. I think there are a couple guys on offense who can make plays - Maurice Ffrench and Taysir Mack have proven it and Shocky Jacques-Louis can do it - but there’s still a big question mark on defense.

At least in my view.

I look at this defense from front to back and I see a lot of solid guys. Lots of solid guys. Solid guys at almost every position. Maybe every position. Solid guys all over the place. Solid, solid, solid.

And solid is good. Solid is sound. Solid will make most of the plays that are there to be made. You can win with solid.

But at some point, there needs to be a little something…more. Call it “playmaking” or “game-changing” or “impact” - whatever you want to call it, Pitt’s defense needs it. And it needs it in multiple positions.

Up front, Rashad Weaver is the obvious candidate. He led Pitt in sacks last season and should do it again, but just leading the team in sacks isn’t enough. Somebody will lead the team in sacks, but that doesn’t mean they’re an impact player.

Getting like nine or 10 sacks - that would be an impact player. Clelin Farrell led the ACC last year with 10.5 Three other players had 10 sacks and two more had nine. Rashad Weaver had 6.5 last year, which put him in the top 10 of the conference; this year, he needs to be in the top five. Or top three.

On the back end, there are definitely candidates for playmakers. Dane Jackson and Jason Pinnock both have the potential; the defensive scheme doesn’t necessarily lend itself to cornerbacks getting a ton of interceptions, but those guys can make plays, and if they get the opportunity, I think they can capitalize.

Behind them, Damar Hamlin had two picks last year, tying him for the team lead with Pinnock. That number needs to go up this season if he continues to play the field safety position.

Then there’s the middle. Maybe my expectations for what linebackers can accomplish or the impact they can make are simply too high. Maybe I need to stop thinking about Scott McKillop having 137 tackles and 17.5 tackles for loss and four tackles and two interceptions.

That was 10 years ago. Things are different now. But more recently, we saw one season where two linebackers had double-digit TFL’s and five sacks each. That was 2015 and the linebackers were Matt Galambos (10 TFL, 5 sacks, 2 interceptions, 2 forced fumbles) and Mike Caprara (10.5 TFL, 5 sacks, 1 interception). I would take that kind of production out of Elias Reynolds and one of the outside linebackers, wouldn't you?

I digress; I can get caught up spending too much time on numbers. But the bigger point remains: somebody needs to emerge as a playmaker for this defense.

The other way it could go
Or, let’s think again about that last thought…

So, when I think about Pitt’s defense and the level it’s trying to reach, the inevitable comparison - maybe the inevitable goal post - is Michigan State. That’s where Pat Narduzzi had his most success and that is, presumably, the model for the success he’s trying to have at Pitt.

So let’s look at Michigan State. When the Spartans were at their best and Narduzzi was building his reputation as one of the hottest coordinators in college football, was the MSU defense relying on a handful of playmakers, the way I’m saying Pitt needs to?

Michigan State really came into its own defensively in 2011, when the Spartans were ranked in the top 11 nationally in total defense (6), scoring defense (10), rush defense (9) and pass defense (11). The next year all four stats were in the top 10 nationally despite the Spartans stumbling to a 7-6 record.

2013 was the peak, though. MSU went 13-1 and beat Stanford in the Rose Bowl to finish the season ranked No. 3 in the AP poll. The Spartans’ defense led the way: No. 2 in total defense, No. 3 in scoring defense, No. 2 in rush defense and No. 3 in pass defense.

Were the Spartans in 2013 led by one or two dynamic playmakers, the way McKillop paced Pitt in 2007 and 2008 or Aaron Donald led the way in his senior season?

Kind of.

Linebacker Denicos Allen and defensive end Shilique Calhoun were the biggest producers for MSU that year. Allen had 17 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks and Calhoun came off the edge for 14 tackles for loss and a team-leading 7.5 sacks.

Set Allen’s performance aside for a second; we’ll talk about the linebackers in the next section. But Calhoun’s numbers are interesting to me, because 14 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks aren’t that far off from what Rashad Weaver did for Pitt in 2018; in fact, it’s the same number of TFL’s and just one more sack than Weaver had.

That’s more or less the case when you look at the MSU defensive stats from 2011-14. Allen had an exceptional season in 2011 (18.5 TFL, 11 sacks), but for the most part, no individual players put up numbers that were extraordinarily far and above what Weaver did in 2018. Calhoun followed his 7.5 sacks in 2013 with eight in 2014. A few other Spartans had seven or eight sacks over that span, but mostly, the numbers were close to Weaver’s.

But here’s the separation: in 2014, when Calhoun had 12.5 TFL and eight sacks, MSU also got 12.5 TFL and four sacks from linebacker Taiwan Jones, 12.5 TFL and 7.5 sacks from linebacker Ed Davis and 10.5 TFL and 7.5 sacks from defensive end Marcus Rush.

Those four players combined for 48 TFL and 27 sacks that season. Last year for Pitt, it took seven players to combine for that many tackles for loss and 11 to reach that number of sacks.

And maybe that’s the key. Maybe that’s what Pitt needs to shoot for. Instead of hoping for a McKillop or a Donald or a ‘Juan Price, maybe the Panthers need a handful of players to elevate their performances a little bit - to get closer to that 10 TFL/5 sack range that Galambos and Caprara were in four years ago.

In 2018. Seun Idowu had 9.5 tackles for loss, Patrick Jones and Quintin Wirginis had seven each and Dewayne Hendrix had five. Three of those guys aren’t returning this season, but you get the point:

A little more production from a few of those guys, and the numbers start looking more like those Michigan State defenses. Start doing that, and you might see an overall elevation in the performance of the defense.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

What about the middle?
I talked about the linebackers a little bit earlier in this column, but I’m revisiting it here because those Michigan State numbers really stand out to me.

Denicos Allen was a beast for the Spartans. Over the course of three seasons, he had 45.5 tackles for loss and 19.5 sacks. That included a monster 2011 with 18.5 TFL’s and 11 sacks. Those are huge numbers that make a considerable difference, and while the 2011 defense got the bulk of the rest of its production from defensive linemen, the 2012, 2013 and 2014 defenses had multiple linebackers producing.

In 2012, Allen (10 TFL, 3 sacks) was matched by Max Bullough (12.5 TFL, 2.5 sacks). Those two did it again in 2013 when Allen had 17 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks and Bullough had 10 TFL and 1.5 sacks. And in 2014, after Allen and Bullough were gone, they were replaced by Ed Davis (12.5 TFL, 7.5 sacks) and Taiwan Jones (12.5 TFL, 4 sacks).

Say what you will about Galambos and Caprara, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the best statistical performance for Pitt’s defense under Narduzzi was in 2015 when those two had those 10-and-5 seasons behind Price’s 19.5 TFL and 11.5 sacks.

The Panthers haven’t gotten that kind of production from multiple linebackers in the last three seasons, and while there are certainly plenty of reasons why the defense has struggled at times, I think the linebackers can’t be overlooked.

So what can we expect from that position group this year? There’s not exactly a lot of precedent for this group. Set aside the notion of projected starters, because the outside spots are up for grabs and, more importantly, because the coaches are going to rotate at the linebacker spots.

If you look at the six guys who are likely to be in the two-deep, it’s Elias Reynolds and Wendell Davis in the middle, Phil Campbell and Cam Bright at Star and Saleem Brightwell and Chase Pine at Money. Those six combined to record 7.5 tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks.

Now, Campbell was playing safety and Davis redshirted after appearing in just four games, but Reynolds became a starter after Quintin Wirginis was injured prior to the Notre Dame game, Brightwell was a rotational player and even started one game and Pine and Bright were backups who appeared in all 14 games.

But none of them produced very much, regardless of opportunity, so there’s not a lot of history upon which to base expectations. So that’s the big question: what can you expect from Pitt’s rebuilt corps of linebackers? And that word - “rebuilt” - applies, since Pitt graduated two full-time starters and a third who would have been a full-season starter if he hadn’t gotten hurt at midseason.

Reynolds and Brightwell have a bunch of starts under their belts, of course, but overall, this is not a group with much of a collective resume. So if the production of the linebackers is a key missing element for the defense, then there are some major questions to answer before determining how much this defense can really improve.

Can Camp stay healthy?
Rashad Weaver is the biggest name among the defensive linemen because he’s got the most returning production. And Patrick Jones is right behind him in terms of intrigue; while he took some bad penalties last season, he also made quite a few plays in a reserve role and will move into a starting job this season.

But for my money, I think one other player has a chance to make a significant impact:

Keyshon Camp.

The redshirt junior defensive tackle was, by several measures, among Pitt’s most productive defensive linemen last season. His two sacks were more than any other defensive tackle had, and his 18 pressures - per Pro Football Focus - paced the position as well.

And he put up those numbers despite playing in just seven games - half as many as starters Shane Roy and Amir Watts, who had fewer sacks and fewer pressures combined than Camp had.

But therein lies the problem: injuries. Camp missed seven games last season after suffering an injury in the loss at Notre Dame. The year before he only played in 10 games, missing two due to injury. Two injuries in two seasons (although it might have been three, since his absences in 2017 came at separate times in the season) isn’t a terrible red flag, but it’s not good.

So the first step is keeping Camp healthy. But if he can stay on the field, Camp could possibly be a playmaker for a defense that is looking for some. His stats from last season don’t just stand out in comparison to the other defensive tackles; his numbers actually stack up favorably against the rest of Pitt’s defense.

His 18 pressures on 92 pass-rush snaps worked out to an average of one pressure every 5.1 pass rushes. That average was better than Weaver, better than Jones and better than Dewayne Hendrix. Those three players had a full season, of course, and who’s to say whether or not Camp would have maintained that pace throughout 14 games. But the production is hard to overlook.

It’s not a terrible surprise, either. Camp was one of the standouts in the 2016 recruiting class, an underrated three-star prospect who should have been firmly in four-star territory. He was committed to USC before making a winter switch to Pitt, and he was behind Watts by only the slightest of margins in 2016, so Watts played and Camp redshirted.

Now Camp has two active seasons under his belt and appears to be healthy. He should be lining up as a starter next to Watts, and I think if he can stay on the field for 12 or 13 or 14 games, he can reach or surpass the stats that Shakir Soto put up in 2016 when he had 10 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks.

JUST ONE MORE THING

It really is time
The short version is this:

I like the secondary. There’s potential in the defensive line. And the linebackers have something to prove.

The long version is this:

Pitt has some good players in the defensive backfield who should be able to handle their duties and responsibilities well. There are probably even a couple players back there with a future in the NFL. But if the seven players in front of them don’t do their jobs, if the defensive line doesn’t get pressure and the linebackers don’t make contact with receivers between the hashes, then the secondary is going to look bad, just like it has at various points over the last four years.

This defense, like most, works as a collective unit. One of the core beliefs is that, if an offense relies on timing, then the defense has to disrupt that timing. Doing so is a group effort. That’s the whole point of the “press” in Pitt’s press quarters scheme: you might not be bigger than the receiver and you might not be faster, but if you can get your hands on him at the line of scrimmage and throw off the timing of his route just a little, you can make it a very long day for him.

But it’s not enough for the corners to press. The guys up front have to do their part, too. So do the linebackers. And so do the safeties. Everybody has to play at a high level, and with just a handful of exceptions over the last two years, that hasn’t happened - not all at the same time. And if one unit’s not at a high level, it can waste the efforts of the rest of the defense.

So, after four years of roster-building, coaching and developing, it’s time for things to come together.

I used that phrase a week or two ago: It’s time. I thought Narduzzi might want to make that this year’s team motto, the 2019 version of “Lock the Gates,” only this year’s edition would have a clear meaning:

It’s time to actually take a big step forward.

That goes for the team as a whole, but it really applies to the defense. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the defense is comprised entirely of players Narduzzi and his staff brought to Pitt. They’re all “his guys” - not that Narduzzi ever used inherited players as an excuse, nor should he - and since these are players Narduzzi recruited to play in his defensive scheme, the logic follows that they should have the best chance of success.

So…let’s see it. No more blowouts. No more 300-yard games from dudes who have no business ever sniffing that number. No more looking like you don’t belong when you face a strong passing game. It’s time to start being the reason Pitt wins games when facing teams with good offenses.