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In this week’s 3-2-1 column, we are talking about the first day of fall camp for the football team which is set to begin later this morning. Also, we’ll touch on a little bit of recruiting news following yesterday’s addition to the 2022 recruiting class.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
The 2021 season starts today
Football is back in Western Pennsylvania. The Steelers played their first preseason game last night, and Pitt is opening up camp this morning. We’re looking at 90 degree days for the next few weeks in the city of Pittsburgh, but the crisp autumn air has been making its presence felt in the evening. Football is in the air.
The Panthers will open the season in 29 days when UMass comes to Heinz Field for a 4:00 p.m. kickoff at Heinz Field. It will feel like a more conventional season than whatever we want to call the 2020 debacle. Hopefully there will be fans in seats, and less meetings on Zoom for the media.
A new season always brings hope and optimism for any team and for those that follow it, especially on the first day of fall camp. Dreams of conference championships and breakout players are everywhere, and that’s totally fair. Obviously once you peel back the good feelings and best case scenarios, there are issues and question marks that must be discussed and Pitt is no different from any other team.
This program is welcoming in two new assistant coaches to the staff….There are ongoing concerns about the offensive line play and the running game….The offensive coordinator has a lot to show in year three….The defense has to replace a lot of talent…The seventh year head coach needs to breakout this year….the recruiting class could use some additions….
(Hey, we'll talk about all of it on our message boards)
Once you start thinking about it all, the season all lays out like a big puzzle, and today marks the first step in seeing how this program puts the pieces in place. Every season is a new adventure with new storylines and it’s exciting for fans, players, coaches, and the media to watch it all play out from their unique points of view.
Let’s dig in.
Pitt landed a ‘big’ commitment yesterday
We’re obviously talking heavily about the start of training camp in this column, but we can’t ignore a pretty big event that happened yesterday. Pitt landed a four-star offensive line from Ohio named Ryan Baer. He chose Pitt over Michigan State, Kentucky, Illinois, and Virginia. Baer checks in at 6’8” and 331-pounds and is the 10th highest rated prospect in the state of Ohio according to Rivals.com.
The sense about Baer is that he was never really a Pitt-lean until recently. Many thought he would go to Michigan State or Kentucky. He took official visits to his four other finalists, but only did an unofficial to Pitt back in June. The Pitt coaches seemed to always be in the mix here, but Pitt never felt like the favorite until earlier this week. It’s a big win for this staff to land this commitment.
Grabbing a four-star offensive linemen is always a big deal, especially considering Pitt hasn’t landed one since 2014. I think Pitt has landed some good offensive line prospects in the meantime, but getting a four-star is always a good thing. The offensive line play at Pitt has been a little suspect of late, and the program needs more talent thrown into the mix here. Baer is now one of four offensive line prospects in the class of 2022. Pitt needed talent and depth to add here, and this class seems to help takes care of those needs.
Baer is now also the highest ranked recruit in the class for Pitt. The Panthers currently have 13 commitments, and truth be told the class won’t get much bigger than this. They have room for a few more prospects, but this won’t be a 25-man class or anything. I’m not expecting any further commitments in the month of August as the coaches will be locked-in on camp and starting the season, and most uncommitted prospects will also be honing in on their senior season of high school football.
We’ll keep monitoring how the class plays out from here. There are some big names on Pitt’s board still out there: Tyreese Fearbry and Travious Lathan are two that come to mind immediately. Plus it seems the staff might not been done offering more 2022 prospects. Recruiting can change by the day, but on Thursday Pitt landed a good one for the class of 2022.
The 2021 team will have new leaders
There is always turnover in college football, but after covering this Pitt team for a few years, there were some pretty constant faces in the locker room for the past four or five years. We have written countless tweets, articles, and message board posts about Damar Hamlin, Patrick Jones, Rashad Weaver, and Jimmy Morrissey for so long now. After big wins and tough losses, those were the guys sent to the podium. They were the voices that connected Pitt fans to the Pitt team for the past few seasons. They are all off to the NFL, but it certainly leaves a void of sorts.
Kenny Pickett is still around, and it’s pretty clear he’s the player-face of the program. The senior quarterback has scooped up just about every NIL opportunity available to Pitt players in the past month. He plays the most important position, started nearly every game since 2018, and is a team leader. It’s pretty natural he’s the guy that everyone looks to for just about anything: an endorsement, an article, a quote, leadership within the team: He’s the guy everyone knows.
But who else steps up as the recognizable faces, not just as team leaders or guys that talk to the media, but as guys that Pitt fans or fans of college football will know about when looking at this 2021 Pitt team? Obviously Jordan Addison is a budding star as a wide receiver. Calijah Kancey and Sir’Vocea Dennis certainly look to have pro potential down the line. Those guys seem like obvious candidates for sure.
There has been a sense of consistency at Pitt the past few years and some of those departed seniors were big in that, but there is a sense of change and it will be interesting to see who emerges as the stars or faces of the program for this year and beyond.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
Can this season play out differently?
The 2021 season almost feels like a mulligan for this program, Pat Narduzzi, and Kenny Pickett. Last year, the team had a lot of really good players returning on defense, the senior quarterback was ready for one last ride, but then COVID hit the world. The schedule changed, the league changed, everything did really. The team lost two one-point games early on in the season, Kenny Pickett got injured, and things sort of spiraled from there to the tune of a disappointing 6-5 campaign
Fast forward a year to today. The schedule is more conventional with non-conference games back and divisions within the ACC reinstated. Kenny Pickett gets a second chance at a senior season with the extra year being granted to everyone that played last year. The defense still has some really good players, albeit some different names. It’s not like you can erase what happened last season, but there is a chance at redemption for sure.
So will it happen? The non-conference schedule is favorable with three pretty manageable home games, and a road contest against a rebuilding Tennessee program. The toughest games in ACC play are all at home: Clemson, Miami, and North Carolina. There appears to be some cohesion to the offense after finding some success late in the year as well.
- Can Mark Whipple and Pickett get the offense on track and play consistently for a whole season?
- Can the offensive line and the running backs repair a running game that has been down for the last two seasons?
- Can the defense still play at a high level without Patrick Jones, Rashad Weaver, and Damar Hamlin?
Can the team navigate a non-conference schedule that does not appear difficult on paper?
- Can Pitt win the Coastal Division after getting the top two projected teams at home?
These are all open-ended questions and ones that can’t really be answered here on August 6th. Pitt has a lot to prove this season, and they have a lot of good pieces and depth on the roster and some stability within the coaching staff. I guess these questions have followed this program around for years and we’ll have to wait and see what, if anything, will be different in 2021.
What are five key position battles to watch?
QB2 - We left spring ball on a bit of a cliffhanger here, as no true backup quarterback was ever established. Of course, Davis Beville and Nick Patti shined in the spring game, and Joey Yellen struggled. Yellen was the No. 2 option last year, however, so it does still feel like a three way battle to be Kenny Pickett’s backup.
RB - It’s been two years of a running back committee, which really has been Vincent Davis and AJ Davis carrying the load, with a little bit of Todd Sibley sprinkled in there as well. This year feels a little different with the emergence of Israel Abanikanda in spring ball. He was talked up all spring, and delivered in the actual spring game. He feels like a big factor, but then again Vincent Davis ended 2020 with his best career game. The battle for the top running back spot seems like one worth watching closely.
OT - Its pretty simple here: there are three tackles vying for two starting spots. Carter Warren and Gabe Houy are the incumbents, and Matthew Goncalves is the challenger. In the 2020 season, Goncalves got his chance to play with some players missing time for COVID-19 protocols and he excelled, and he also had a strong spring to follow. Warren and Houy have tons of game experience as well. This might be the one we're watching the most.
LB - Linebacker might be the most talented and deepest spot on the entire Pitt roster. Sir’Vocea Dennis, Phil Campbell, and Cam Bright are three of the best linebackers in the ACC, but they all play on the outside, or at least they did. Could one play middle linebacker? But Pitt also has two or three middle linebackers that have logged a lot of snaps in Chase Pine, Wendell Davis, and Brandon George. How do they sort the playing time here? It will be something to watch, and with new linebackers coach Ryan Manalac involved, it will be very interesting to see his perspective.
K - I think this is a big one, and maybe an underrated battle. Losing Alex Kessman won’t be easy, he was a pretty good college kicker and one Pitt will miss dearly. Ben Sauls is a redshirt freshman that was recruited to Pitt and Sam Scarton is a redshirt sophomore that is a walk-on and both seemed locked in a battle during spring. Scarton missed the spring game with an injury, but I think the job is very much open as camp starts today.
ONE PREDICTION
MJ Devonshire will be Pitt’s top newcomer in 2021
Pitt has 21 new freshmen enrolled for this upcoming season from the 2021 recruiting class. The program also welcomed in a pair of transfers in the offseason in Marcus Minor and MJ Devonshire. For my money, I’m thinking MJ Devonshire may be the name we talk about most during the 2021 season.
Pitt’s 2021 signing class was ranked 22nd in the Rivals.com team rankings, the highest rated class signed by Pat Narduzzi in his tenure at Pitt. There are plenty of notable prospects coming into the program like Elliot Donald, Nahki Johnson, Khalil Anderson, Dorien Ford, and NaQuan Brown. There were also a lot of early enrollees in that class, and we got to see a few of those guys play in the spring game. The coaching staff is very high on a few of the true freshmen, tight end Gavin Bartholomew comes to mind, and some will have the chance to make early impacts in their first year with the program.
Marcus Minor is just about penciled into being one of the starting guards for this upcoming season. Minor is a former four-star recruit and has plenty of starting experience after having played several years for the University of Maryland. He may be one of the keys to Pitt having an improved offensive line in 2021, and don’t get me wrong, that’s a huge deal.
Something about M.J. Devonshire has me thinking he will be the guy that sort of steals the show among all of the newcomers for this season. Long term, maybe that’s a different story, but for this season I think he has something to offer.
Pitt has some ‘holes’ in the secondary, if you will. Losing starters like Damar Hamlin, Paris Ford, and Jason Pinnock is certainly a big deal and a lot of different players will need to help offset those losses. There are some returning guys with playing experience, but not to the point where Devonshire would be pushed to the side, though. He will be right in the mix for playing time with any of them.
Devonshire has positional versatility. He can play either cornerback or safety, and after all the interviews we had with different coaches and players during spring ball, you tend to get the sense that Devonshire will go where he’s needed most and where he can play the earliest.
I also like Devonshire’s mindset as he comes to the Pitt program after attending Kentucky for his first two college seasons. Devonshire was a highly sought-after recruit out of Aliquippa, but he chose to leave Western Pennsylvania and didn’t really make much of an impact in his two years in Lexington. I think the scheme and fit played a part in that, but of course he was an underclassmen as well.
During his first interview session with the Pittsburgh media, he cited that he knew what he was looking for in his second recruiting process which led him to choosing Pitt. He believes he can excel at Pitt based on the scheme and how the defensive backs are coached and positioned. Pitt plays more man coverage and he believes that fits his game more.
“The first time around, I was a kid and I really wasn’t sure what I was looking for,” Devonshire said in a February interview. “I was just going into it like it was a video game, like it was a fairytale. Being older and more mature you’re able to make a better decision that fits you and knowing what you’re looking for and knowing what you want in a school.”
Given the opportunities available this season following some key departures, I have a feeling Devonshire can make a big impact right away in this secondary. Throw in the fact that he can be a return specialist as well, I believe there are a lot of signs pointing to him to making the biggest impact this season of all the new players starting their first fall camp with Pitt this afternoon.
