MORE HEADLINES - Slideshow: Photos from training camp | 5 players who need to step up in 2020 | One of Pennsylvania's best athletes is in western Pa. in the 2023 class | PODCAST: Pickett, Yellen, QBs, skill players and more | Video and transcript: Narduzzi on COVID, Yellen, the DT depth and more | 2022 Cass Tech DL adds Pitt offer | Johnson pushes the hometown heroes to Pitt

In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about quarterbacks, skill players, scholarship numbers and a lot more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Three arms (or six) are better than four (or two)
In terms of news, the last week was a bit quieter than the week before had been, but there was at least one notable development for Pitt since the last 3-2-1 Column.

The NCAA ruled Joey Yellen eligible to play this season.

Yellen, of course, transferred to Pitt from Arizona State this offseason, and the Panthers staff and administrators did their due diligence in applying to the NCAA for immediate eligibility. That’s standard operating procedure; whether you think the player has a good case or not, you should apply for the waiver. The NCAA is inconsistent and unpredictable enough that you just might get it.

I don’t know Yellen’s circumstances or what case Pitt made in their argument for him getting eligible immediately, and quite frankly, that’s personal for Yellen. And I’m also not going to claim that I know why the NCAA made the ruling it made; I have a better chance of waking up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet than I do of predicting and understanding that organization’s decisions.

No, the interesting thing to me and the thing I can and will opine on, is what it means for Pitt to have Yellen eligible this season.

Ultimately, there’s really no downside to the situation. If Yellen is good enough, you don’t necessarily expect him to beat Pickett for the starting job but you can at least rest a little easier knowing that he’ll be available to compete for the backup role. It’s not a bad thing to have more viable options.

The only potential negative fallout with Yellen getting eligible is that it would thrust him directly into the backup quarterback competition. Like I said, that’s a good thing, but if Yellen would end up winning the No. 2 job, there could be potential fallout with the rest of the quarterbacks. Nick Patti, the most experienced of the backups, will be a redshirt sophomore this season, and Davis Beville will be a redshirt freshman (like Yellen). If those two watch Yellen step into the top reserve spot, they could take that as an indication that he’s the front-runner for the starting job in 2021. And that could lead to transfers, which would deplete the depth for the future.

I’m not saying that I have insight on Patti or Beville, and I don’t know if one or both would consider transferring in the event of Yellen winning the backup job. Really, there’s probably a pretty high chance of someone transferring after next spring when one of those three is named the starter; that’s just the way things are in college football these days - if you are a quarterback and you don’t see a clear path to a starting job, you’re probably going to look elsewhere.

So there’s the risk of that happening if Yellen gets the backup role. But like I said, that risk exists next spring, too. Ultimately, I still think it’s a net positive to have Yellen available. We’ve seen plenty of seasons where Pitt didn’t have enough quality quarterbacks ready to play; there’s no harm in having an extra one this year.

So many questions
Speaking of eligibility, the NCAA opened up a can of worms this week when the Division I Council approved a proposal that would not count the 2020 fall season as a year of eligibility for any student-athlete, regardless of how many games/matches/meets etc. they participate in.

Pete Thamel from Yahoo!, among others, reported that move, and the NCAA Board of Governors will decided whether to pass it today, but it sounds like it will happen.

And to me, that’s going to create so many questions that I should have put this into the “Two Questions We Have” section of the column. But I have more than two questions, so it might be too much to fit it in there.

To start, I think this creates a super-sized freshman class. Think about it. The class of 2020 is on campus now as freshmen, but with this rule change or waiver or one-time exception or whatever you want to call it, they’ll be freshmen next year, too.

And so will the class of 2021 when those players arrive next summer. They’ll be true freshmen, too. So you’ve got 17 current freshmen from the 2020 class, and then you’ll be adding a 2021 class that was already shaping up to be a large one. We expected Pitt to sign close to the limit of 25 players in the 2021 class; if the Panthers settle at 23, you’re looking at the 2021 roster having 40 true freshmen.

That’s wild enough, but play it forward a year. The NCAA seems like it will relax the 85-scholarship limit for the 2021 season to allow seniors to return, and that’s all well and good. But what happens after that? The 85 limit would presumably come back in 2022, and that would mean that teams would potentially be sitting with single-digit scholarships available for the 2022 class.

Think about it: let’s assume Pitt’s 18 seniors this season decide to return for 2021 and the coaches sign 23 guys in the 2021 class. You’d have all of this year’s 83 scholarship players plus 23 from the 2021 class. That is 106. Then in 2022, the seniors would be gone, but the rest of the roster would be back. Or, in our scenario, 88 scholarship players.

Shoot, Pitt would need to drop players just to get to 85 scholarships in 2022, and that’s without adding any recruits in the 2022 class. How is that going to work? Maybe the numbers won’t be that extreme; not all of the seniors will come back and some underclassmen will leave for the NFL or transfer. But even in the most liberal of departure scenarios, you’re looking at having less than a dozen (probably single digits) scholarships available for the 2022 recruiting class.

I can’t wait to see how the NCAA works this one out.

Then there’s the question of how many seniors a coaching staff would want to bring back. Or how many they would be able to bring back. Because every student-athlete who returns is not just another football player; he’s a scholarship, a five-figure investment, and somebody has to pay for all of those guys to come back. In the wake of potential huge financial losses, are schools going to want to pay for that?

As far as Pitt goes, it would be pretty interesting if guys like Kenny Pickett and Jimmy Morrissey and Patrick Jones and Phil Campbell and Damar Hamlin all came back for another year. Not to mention the cornerbacks, the kicker and a bunch of starters all over the place.

That would be the upside: another year of some key players would be pretty nice for Pitt heading into 2021, especially at spots like quarterback or center or basically every position on defense where there isn’t a lot of experience waiting in the wings.

But man, the questions. Like I said, I can’t wait to see how the NCAA works this one out.

Living up to the hype
I’ve talked about this before, but now that training camp is underway, I wanted to come back to it.

I said at some point - or at various points - in the last 6-12 months that the recruiting class of 2020 was shaping up to be Pat Narduzzi’s best class since coming to Pitt. That’s the class that is on campus now as freshmen, and while I believed the superlative about the class when those players were recruits, I reserved some amount of judgment until they actually arrived and did something.

So far in camp, it seems like they’re doing something.

The guys we had high expectations for, specifically the skill players, are living up to their billing, from what I’ve been told. That includes receiver Jordan Addison, possibly the best player in the class (at the very least, the best offensive player in the class). From what I hear, Addison has been every bit of what the coaches hoped he would be, jumping into the mix at receiver and making a case for first-team reps.

His colleague at receiver, Jaylon Barden, hasn’t been too shabby either; I expected both of those guys to see playing time as freshmen, and I still have that same expectation.

Elsewhere on the offense, running back Israel Abanikanda was here in the spring - like Addison - and gave at least a little bit of a preview of what he can do. But it sounds like he has really taken to the offense in training camp and - also like Addison - is working his way up the depth chart.

My guess is AJ Davis will open the season as the top running back, but Abanikanda won’t be far behind. Vincent Davis has a lot of speed and will be involved in the offense, but Abanikanda could end up ahead of him because of his all-around game.

On the other side of the ball, I’m really intrigued with what I’m hearing about the linebackers. I thought this group of Solomon DeShields, Bangally Kamara and AJ Roberts had a chance to be possibly the best group of linebackers Pitt has signed in more than a decade, and the early reviews have been really good.

DeShields and Kamara, in particular, seem to be standing out. I can’t think of another linebacker Pitt has had with DeShields’ size who could run like him. Maybe Greg Williams 10 years ago? And while I wondered if Kamara would be too much of a ‘tweener - not fast enough to play safety, not big enough to play linebacker - he appears to be fitting in really well. I think there will be some opportunities for those guys to get on the field this season. Special teams is the obvious option, but I think they could see some snaps with the defense.

With the NCAA’s temporary rule changes for 2020, there’s no reason for the coaches to hold back. If a freshman is ready, then he’ll play, whether it’s one game or four games or six or more.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

What is Pickett’s ceiling?
Pro Football Focus senior college analyst Anthony Treash published a monumental project this week with his ranking of all 130 starting quarterbacks in the FBS.

That’s a huge undertaking, and I commend him for even familiarizing himself with all 130 (and really, it was more than 130 since he listed two quarterbacks for quite a few teams). Naturally, my focus went right to Pitt’s quarterback; I wanted to see where Kenny Pickett ranked.

As I was scrolling to get to Pickett, I couldn’t help but notice four of Pitt’s 2020 opponents - Trevor Lawrence (Clemson), D’Eriq King (Miami), Ian Book (Notre Dame) and Micale Cunningham (Louisville) ranked in the top 30; that’s not quite the murderer’s row that Pitt faced in 2016, but it’s tough.

After seeing those, I finally came to Pickett. He ranked at No. 33 among the starters in FBS and No. 6 in the ACC - the real ACC, not the one that includes Notre Dame. That puts him behind Lawrence, King, Cunningham, Sam Howell (North Carolina) and Chase Brice (Duke by way of a transfer from Clemson).

I guess that’s a fair spot for Pickett to be in. Really, ranking No. 33 out of 130+ quarterbacks is pretty solid, especially when Pickett’s most recent season saw him at the helm of an offense that averaged a little more than 21 points per game. That low scoring wasn’t all Pickett’s fault, of course, but it’s tough to say he was exceptional.

Now, I will say that I probably think more highly of Pickett than a lot of the vocal online fans. I think a segment of the Pitt fan base puts more blame on Pickett than he deserves, but I also acknowledge that he could have played better and needed to play better.

The real question right now is how good Pickett can realistically be. What’s his ceiling? It’s not Joe Burrow numbers; Burrow led the country with 5,671 passing yards and 60 touchdowns against just six interceptions last season, and quite frankly, that’s absurd. But as I scroll down through last year’s leading passers, I get to Pickett at No. 28 with 3,098 yards and think, ‘Where does Pickett fit in with these other quarterbacks?’

I don’t know if his yardage needs to go up by too much. I mean, he threw for 3,098 yards and missed one full start, so it’s probably not crazy to think he could have topped 3,250 or more. And obviously they’re only going to play 10 or 11 games this season, so the odds are against him even getting to 3,000, I would think.

But that’s not the important number. The important number is the other number: the touchdowns. Pickett only threw 13 of those. Patrick O’Brien at Colorado State is the only other quarterback in the country who threw for at least 2,800 yards and only 13 touchdowns in 2019. And only seven other quarterbacks nationally topped 2,000 passing yards but threw 13 or fewer touchdowns.

That’s not exactly what I would call elite company. But if Pickett is going to make himself a top-25 quarterback - and, by extension, Pitt is going to have a top-25 offense and a top-25 team - then the touchdowns have to go up.

At least by seven.

I think the bar for a good season, especially on a shortened schedule, is 20 touchdown passes. There were 29 quarterbacks who played all or most of the season in 2019 and averaged two touchdown passes per game. Pickett needs to shoot for that.

Yes, there are a lot of elements that go into that. Pitt has to run the ball better and block better and catch passes better. All of those things are essential to upping the touchdown total. If all of those things get better, though, we have one more question left:

Is Pickett good enough to throw 20 touchdown passes in 10 games?

I think he has that potential, but he hasn’t done it yet.

Who are the next hometown heroes?
Pitt’s got a nice little run going with local prospects.

No, they’re not getting Donovan McMillon in this class and they’re probably behind - but not as much as people think - for Derrick Davis. But with Dayon Hayes in the last class and this year’s group already looking strong with Nahki Johnson, Elliot Donald and Stephon Hall, you’re seeing western Pa. responding to Pitt as well as it has in years.

And it’s not just recruiting. In what is certainly a related situation, Pitt is having success on the field with some notable local products. Of course, the most prominent are Damar Hamlin and Paris Ford. I’ve talked about those guys before and how important they are. For young, up-and-coming football players in high school or middle school right now, Hamlin and Ford are creating quite a path.

Young players look up to Hamlin and Ford and see the success they’re having playing college football in the ACC and doing it in front of the hometown crowd. Just like Jordan Whitehead was inspired by Tyler Boyd’s hometown success, so too are current high schoolers moved by what they see from Hamlin and Ford.

Add in the recruiting success with Hayes and Johnson and Donald, and you’ve got all the makings for Pitt to really build some momentum locally.

Unfortunately, the 2022 recruiting class - that’s the next class coming up, the class that will be juniors this fall - isn’t exactly western Pennsylvania’s strongest. As of this writing, not one western Pa. recruit has an offer from a Power Five school. And prior to Toledo’s offer spree a couple weeks ago, there weren’t many prospects in the area who had any FBS offers to speak of.

It’s a light year in the WPIAL, and that happens from time to time. But I can’t remember another year that looked this light. Granted, this group has been hurt by the pandemic as much as any class. They should have been hitting the camp circuit throughout the spring and summer, working out for coaches and earning offers in the process.

Instead, they’ve been sitting at home since the second week of March - like the rest of us - while college coaches look at the same sophomore highlights they’ve been evaluating since January, trying to see if anything new or different jumps out.

So far, not much new or different has jumped out.

There will be at least a few Power Five prospects in the WPIAL for the 2022 class, I’m sure. Pitt will probably even end up offering a couple of them. But it’s not a strong year, which is unfortunate for the Panthers since they should be in position to make some real progress locally.

In lieu of going hard on 2022 prospects, though, the Pitt staff can certainly spend some energy on 2023. Rodney Gallagher and Ta’Mere Robinson from that class already have offers from the Panthers; they look like they will be national recruits, and they won’t be the only 2023 recruits to get Power Five opportunities.

That might have to be the focus for Pat Narduzzi and his staff. Fortunately, they’ve got guys like Hayes, Donald and Johnson to hold up as examples for Gallagher, Robinson and the rest.

ONE PREDICTION

2020’s skill players will be better than 2019’s were
I’ve been thinking about this topic throughout the week and talked about it on the Panther-Lair Show podcast Tuesday night, and I really do believe that Pitt’s skill players on offense - the running backs, the receivers and the tight ends - this season will be an upgrade over what we saw last season.

Obviously, the determination on that will be made after we see what they do in the season, but that’s why it’s a prediction, right? And I think there are some conclusions we can draw right now to back that up.

Let’s start with the tight ends. The tight ends were not a strength of the team last year (or the year before, or the year before that), and I think most of us would go so far as to say that the tight end position hurt Pitt more than it helped in 2019.

So while we don’t know what Lucas Krull will do for the Panthers as a grad transfer from Florida, I’ve heard more positive things about Krull in the last five months than I heard about Will Gragg and Nakia Griffin-Stewart, and from the little I saw of him in the spring, I think he can be a considerable upgrade.

There’s also the matter of where we’re setting the bar, because it’s pretty low for the tight ends. Last year Gragg and Griffin-Stewart combined to catch 38 passes for 331 yards and one touchdown. In 2018, three tight ends - Gragg, Jim Medure and Tyler Sear - combined for 69 yards on 10 receptions.

Really, there’s nowhere to go but up. And I say that as someone who lives by the mantra that things can always get worse. But I actually do think Krull will be pretty good with his size and ability to run. So that’s one spot that should upgrade.

At receiver, there’s a big loss with the departure of Maurice Ffrench, but the additions include two guys we talked about already in freshmen Jordan Addison and Jaylon Barden. Then there’s Shocky Jacques-Louis; he’s my pick to replace Ffrench in the “catch a million passes” role, and I think that if he can just stay healthy, he’ll be a really strong addition to the group. Add in Taysir Mack as a senior and a sophomore step forward from Jared Wayne, and I think the position as a whole looks better.

Finally, I think the running backs also look like an improved group from last season. AJ Davis may end up being more or less the same player he was in 2019, but a step forward from Vincent Davis, a healthy Todd Sibley and the emergence of Israel Abanikanda as a freshman seems to me like an overall improvement.

I’ll be the first to admit that all three of these position groups will be relying on unproven players to make the improvements I’m predicting. But I don’t think I’m stretching too far to predict those improvements, and I think we’ll have a more favorable view of the running backs, receivers and tight ends in December.

If the season is played.