Today we are looking full steam ahead towards Pitt’s game with North Carolina on Saturday night. The Panthers enter the game with a 4-3 record and will desperately be in need of an upset win to reverse the course of the season and gain some momentum before entering the month of November.

There is some recruiting news to discuss, and a little basketball as well. We’re never short on topics in the world of Pitt athletics. Grab a coffee and dig in for this week’s 3-2-1 Column.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

North Carolina presents a great challenge
Pitt is getting set to take on North Carolina tomorrow night for a primetime ACC Coastal matchup. The Panthers have lost two of their past three games, and now they have their backs up against the wall so to speak with five games remaining in the 2022 regular season. After losing two winnable games to Georgia Tech and Louisville in the month of October, the Panthers own a 1-2 mark in league play and now Pitt is staring down the barrel of the top team in the ACC Coastal Division on Saturday night.

North Carolina enters Saturday’s game ranked 21st in this week’s AP Top 25 after compiling a 6-1 record through seven games. Following a week four loss to Notre Dame, the Tar Heels have now ripped off three straight wins, all over ACC Coastal foes, and enter the game undefeated in the ACC with full control of the division.

The Tar Heels are eighth in the country in both total offense (506 yards per game) and scoring (41.7 ppg). Drake Maye, North Carolina’s first-year starting quarterback Drake Maye leads the ACC in both passing yards (2,283) and passing touchdowns (24). The Tar Heels also boast one of the league’s top receiving threats in Josh Downs, who has 37 catches for 425 yards and five scores, and he leads a dangerous arsenal of weapons that Maye has at his disposal.

Needless to say, the Pitt defense will have their hands full tomorrow night with one of the nation’s most potent offenses. Not to mention, Saturday’s game is a sell-out at Keenan Memorial Stadium and it is homecoming for North Carolina, so it will certainly be a juiced up atmosphere playing under the lights.

History is not on the side for the Panthers, either. Pitt is 0-6 all-time in games played in Chapel Hill. Since joining the ACC, the Tar Heels have had a decisive 6-2 edge in the series.

Pitt has won the last two games, however, including last year’s dramatic 30-23 overtime victory in the rain. That win in November of 2021 was a pivotal step in Pitt securing its second ever ACC Coastal title. It came at the expense of North Carolina, who entered the 2021 season as the prohibitive favorites in the division.

In a way, this year’s meeting is kind of the opposite of that 2021 showdown. Pitt started this year ranked No. 17 in the preseason polls, while the Tar Heels flew a bit under the radar. After coming off an ACC title, many expected the Panthers to be the team to beat again, but with a slow start out of the gates, that looks to be very much in doubt. North Carolina has seemingly been the team to take full advantage of both Pitt and Miami’s misfortunes to this point of the season.

The Tar Heels have been one of the biggest surprises in the ACC. Since returning to his roots, legendary coach Mack Brown has recruited extremely well for North Carolina. He had a top-flight quarterback in Sam Howell, but the Tar Heels were only 21-17 in his first three seasons back in Chapel Hill.

Nobody was quite sure if this offense would still be able to click after losing Howell, but Maye has proven to be more than capable of handling that role. The Tar Heels have some landmines ahead, Pitt included, but this is a quality team that will be a tough test for Pat Narduzzi’s squad.

Pitt’s season enters a new stage
Pitt enters Saturday night’s game against North Carolina with a 4-3 record and 1-2 mark in ACC play. Now I want you to go back and imagine the hype surrounding the team this offseason. Pitt just came off an ACC Championship. The Panthers brought back 15 starters and went to the transfer portal and brought in a big name quarterback. Everything was pointing towards 2022 being another big season for this program.

Heck, I want you to even go back to that moment on September 1st when MJ Devonshire returned an interception for a touchdown to beat West Virginia on national TV in front of a sold out Acrisure Stadium to start the year. With ESPN's College Gameday in the house, Pitt secured a dramatic win over West Virginia in the return of one of the sports’ great rivalry games.

The good vibes around the program were strong.

Now fast forward until now. A 4-3 record? An anemic offense? How did it get to this point? Answering that question may be easier said than done, but for a season that was supposed to be so much more, it has ultimately been one of the more disappointing seasons in recent memory for Pitt football, at least relative to what this season should have or could have been.

It’s time to flip the page. Pitt is a 4-3 football team. They are what their record says they are. There have had countless injuries that have stunted this team’s success. Pitt’s high profile transfer quarterback Kedon Slovis has failed to live up to expectations, and last year’s prolific offense feels like a distant memory.

Pitt’s 2022 campaign has not been what many expected it to be, but the thing is, the season still must go on and it starts with a redemption chance tomorrow night in Chapel Hill. Throughout the offseason we heard about the team’s goal to repeat as ACC Champions. Some players were even floated around the idea of a national championship. I don’t begrudge anyone on the team for thinking that way, even if that particular goal seemed outlandish, but they just won 11 games and had a lot of guys back, if they weren’t aiming or thinking higher, it would have felt wrong almost.

The ACC is doing away with the two division format at the conclusion of this season. Starting in 2023, the two teams with the best conference records will meet in Charlotte for the ACC Championship. More often than not, the two division format has gotten it right through the years pitting the two best teams, but it has also let some teams hang around in the ACC title race longer than probably should have been. For the rest of this season, Pitt can at least try to be that team.

Pitt’s focus for the remainder of the year is basically down to one goal: Go 1-0 each week. It’s a cliché coachspeak way of looking at things, but if Pitt goes 5-0 down the stretch, the Panthers will have a 6-2 record in league play, and also a tiebreaker over North Carolina. It may be just enough to get them back to the ACC title game.

Do I believe that is going to happen? Well, this team hasn’t given me much optimism to think it will. But when you get to a certain point of the season and many of the previous season goals are lost, you have to reevaluate the best case scenarios each and every week.

Pitt’s best case scenario right now is winning out the regular season and praying the ACC Coastal does what it has done in the past, and see where everything stands after the dust settles. This Pitt team does have a chance to salvage this season somewhat, it’s probably unlikely, but that’s where they are and that’s where their mind has to be.

The Panthers lose a 2023 commitment
There was some recruiting news at the start of the week. 2023 three-star wide receiver Daidren Zipperer announced that he was decommitting from the University of Pittsburgh on Monday. Zipperer is a 6’0” and 165-pound playmaker from Lakeland, Florida.

Zipperer announced his commitment to Pitt back on September 24th, so he was only a member of Pitt’s 2023 recruiting class for exactly one month. The three-star from Florida technically committed to Pitt in August, but kept his decision private before announcing his decision publicly last month.

From the start, the entire commitment felt a little perilous. Zipperer announced his decision to Pitt in September, but was quick to make a visit to Utah after that decision. Now that he has officially opened up his recruitment, Utah figures to be one of his likely landing spots. He is also considering BYU and UCF according to Rivals.com.

In an interview with Ryan Wright of Rivals earlier this week, Zipperer had this to say about his decision.

“My heart wasn’t in it anymore with Pitt,” Zipperer said. “I want to follow my heart, and the best decision for me was to decommit. I have no bad blood with Pitt.”

Now let’s rewind back to September 24th when I interviewed Zipperer following his commitment to Pitt.

“First off, it was the relationship part and a good relationship with me and my mom and my family,” Zipperer told Panther-Lair.com in September about why he committed to Pitt. "It felt like that was the most important part in my decision. It was in my heart too. God won’t lead me the wrong way, so in my heart I knew it was the place for me.”

It was in his heart, then it wasn’t. The joys of covering recruiting, right?

Losing Zipperer is certainly a tough setback in terms of adding depth to the wide receiver position for next season and beyond. With each passing week of the 2022 season, we’re noticing that the position is not overly stocked with talent or depth.

Previous wide receiver coaches Chris Beatty and Brennan Marion did not exactly leave the room filled for first year coach Tiquan Underwood, and it has shown on the field in recent weeks. That’s even taking into consideration the Jordan Addison transfer, too. The room was not loaded with depth entering this year, even with Addison in the fold. Pitt had a former walk-on on the field last week against Louisville playing meaningful reps. It’s just one of those things that turned into a bigger problem than maybe we all realized.

Zipperer was one of four wide receiver recruits in the 2023 class, but now that number is down to three. Typically bringing in three wide receivers in one recruiting class is plenty. The group Pitt has landed to this point is pretty talented, too. Kenny Johnson is an in-state player that looks to have a college-ready frame. Zion Fowler is a highly athletic playmaker from New Jersey, and Lamar Seymore is a speedy player that plays for one of the top high school programs in the country.

Losing Zipperer’s commitment hurts for depth reasons, but Pitt does have some other receivers in the fold, and arguably three players more talented than him, or at least rated higher.

I will say losing a commitment on the heels of a poor offensive performance does raise an eyebrow for sure. Pitt has been more committed to the run this season on offense and the opportunities for the wide receivers have been limited. The Panthers have also failed to meet initial preseason expectations. So when one player decommits, it is only natural for fans to wonder if more are on the way.

I’ll say this, I don’t think recruits put as much stock into on-field results as much as fans do. These recruits are picking schools for a variety of reasons, and Pitt starting 4-3 with a bad passing game can play a factor into a decision, but it’s just one of the many things that go into it.

At this stage, Pitt has 18 players committed in the class of 2018. I’m sure most, if not all of them, will sign with Pitt in December. There may be a few more additions and subtractions along the way, Pitt even offer another receiver yesterday. It’s all just part of the game, nothing more and nothing less.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Why no preseason love for John Hugley?
This news is a bit dated, but still relevant with the college basketball season quickly approaching. Pitt opens the 2022-23 campaign in ten days against Tennessee-Martin. Last week, the ACC announced its preseason basketball poll last along with its preseason individual honors.

The Pitt Panthers were picked to finish 14th in the preseason poll out of 15 teams, which is probably a fair selection looking at it from the outside. Jeff Capel added some talent to the roster, but Pitt is coming off an 11-21 season and has finished in the bottom five of the league in each of the past six seasons. I have a hunch this Pitt team outperforms its preseason ranking, but we’ll get into that discussion closer to the start of the season.

The one snub for Pitt is that I felt John Hugley should have been on a preseason All-ACC team. There are two players returning in the ACC that averaged at least 14 points and 7 rebounds a season ago: Hugley, and preseason Player of the Year Armando Bacot for North Carolina.

In their lone head-to-head matchup last season, Hugley guided Pitt to a win in Chapel Hill. Hugley posted 18 points and 5 rebounds, while Bacot was limited to 7 points. That’s not to take anything away from Bacot, because after that game he led the Tar Heels on a memorable run to the national championship game, but it’s more to show Pitt has a big guy that can play with anyone in the country…and his own league doesn’t even seem to notice him.

I get Pitt’s standing as a team may hurt Hugley's preseason recognition. When you play for a team picked to finish next to last in the league, not many outside voters are going to really give the benefit of the doubt to that team’s star player. I’m not saying that is right, but there is some sense to that line of thinking.

But let’s set the record straight here: John Hugley is a very good basketball player. He is one of the best players in the ACC, and if Pitt has a chance to do anything of significance this year, he will be the one leading the charge.

Hugley posted 14.8 points and 7.9 a season ago. The big man went on a big run to close out the season, scoring in double figures in the team’s final seven games of the season. He posted nine double-doubles as a sophomore, and I think he’s only going to get better as a junior.

In the grand scheme of things, it does not matter who is on the preseason All-ACC team, and obviously the one at the end of the year, that takes actual performances into consideration, brings a little more value. I think Hugley will prove his worth this season and find himself on 1st or 2nd team by the end of the season.

There are a lot of question marks surrounding the Pitt basketball roster heading into the 2022-23 season. There are some new faces like Nelly Cummings and wondering how he will equate himself in the ACC. Nike Sibane is coming off an injury, and it will be interesting to track his progression. There is also the unknown swirling around Dior Johnson and his legal troubles. A lot of questions will need answered this season, but there shouldn’t be too many surrounding Hugley. He’s a good one, and one of the best the ACC has to offer.

What is the actual problem on offense?
I think anyone who covers or follows this Pitt football team has kind of been wondering the same thing: What is wrong with the Pitt offense? Is there talent issue on that side of the ball? Or maybe it’s as simple as the quarterback just isn’t playing well. There have been plenty of injuries that have slowed this team down also, and of course perhaps the coaching just hasn’t been up to par either.

Or maybe a little bit of all those things?

In fairness, if I had the answers to the problems Pitt has on offense, I probably would be coaching football, not writing about it. But something has been off with this unit all year, and it really took a turn for the worse last week with a season-low 10 points in a loss to Louisville.

The Pitt offense is 60th nationally in total yards and 56th in scoring the ball. The Panthers produce 415.6 yards and 31.4 points per game. Of course as we know Pitt runs it better (37th nationally) than they throw it (82nd).

We know Pat Narduzzi wanted to run the ball more this season, and he was not shy about saying that throughout the offseason. But was that totally a personal preference on the style of play, or did he have a pretty good idea that Israel Abanikanda would break out this season and he had an experienced line would create holes for him?

I think Pitt knew they had something in Abanikanda this year, and wanted to center the offense around him. But even by featuring him more, I still suspect this offense had larger plans for its passing game than what we've seen through seven games. Narduzzi has coached several run-heavy teams, the 2018 squad comes to mind, but they only won seven games. If there was anything to be learned from that 2018 team, and what transpired last year with a prolific offense, it’s that scoring the ball is the way to go to win more games.

Even the most stubborn, old-school defensive coach knows that. I'm not calling Narduzzi that, but the man likes defense. Narduzzi may prefer a more ball control offense, which is fine in theory and even understandable, but again I think they were looking for more balance this season, not to turn into a power running team entirely. I don’t think Pitt expected to have a bad passing game this year. Kedon Slovis has success before and Frank Cignetti Jr. did some nice work with Phil Jurkovec. This was supposed to be an easy transition for all involved, but it hasn't worked.

It’s really hard to fully get a grasp as to what the issues are on offense, because many of the players out there have had success prior to this year. The sum of all the parts should be better than what it has produced through seven games. I said it the other day, but it just feels like this offense is chasing its tail, or rather, when trying to figure out what’s wrong with this offense you come to one conclusion, but then only to find a new probklem.

For instance, yes the play calling has been has been unimaginative, but have the players given the coaches reason to call games any differently? Slovis used to sling it around for USC, but he has also been hesitant this season. Sure, the wide receivers aren’t getting the ball much, but are they even open down field for Slovis to throw them the ball? Of course the line has been a little disappointing relative to expectations, but defenses aren’t exactly caught off guard by this offensive play call either.

Every issue seemingly has a reason for why it's not working. It's kind of a mess and a revolving cycle of problems. I will say this, I did see this offense show some good things at the beginning of the season against West Virginia and Tennessee. There have been flashes here or there since, Like Abanikanda's breakout game against Virginia Tech. I think somewhere in that Pitt locker room there is a competent offense, but I don’t know what it will take to get it on the field for four quarters.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt’s defense records 5 sacks on Saturday
Ever since joining the ACC, it just felt like North Carolina has had Pitt’s number. The Tar Heels won the first six games from 2013-2018, and it’s not like they were dominant performances where Pitt had no chance either. Quite the contrary, actually. We’re talking six straight one-score losses to the same team for six years in a row by the Panthers.

They were often in excruciating fashion too, like the 2013 meeting where North Carolina’s Ryan Switzer had two punt return touchdowns in a 34-27 win, or back in 2016 when the Tar Heels went on a 17-play fourth quarter drive to beat Pitt 37-36.

It all changed in 2019, however. Pitt defeated the Tar Heels 34-27 in overtime at home behind three touchdowns from Kenny Pickett (2 rushing, 1 passing). It was more of the same last year. Pitt defeated North Carolina in overtime, and Pickett had three passing touchdowns.

The common denominator there, of course, is Pitt’s all-time leading passer stepping up and delivering in a big game both times. Number 8 won’t be suiting up for Pitt on Saturday, but checking the box scores there was another thing that helped lead Pitt to victory over the Tar Heels in the past two meetings.

Pitt sacked Sam Howell five times in both the 2019 and 2021 games. My call is that the Panthers' pass rush get home on Drake Maye five times this weekend. The Panthers have 21 sacks as a team this year, which is pretty good, but still a little below their usual outstanding pace. The Tar Heels rank 9th in the ACC in sacks allowed with 17 on the year. Maye is mobile and can keep plays alive with his legs, but is not an elite runner by any stretch.

Looking back to last year’s game between Pitt and North Carolina, of the five sacks the Panthers recorded against the Tar Heels, 4.5 of them came from Habakkuk Baldonado, Calijah Kancey, SirVocea Dennis, and John Morgan. All four of those guys are still with the team and will be on the field tomorrow. They have the personnel to do it again, but it is ultimately a matter of executing.

I do not know if recording five sacks on Saturday will equate to a win for the Panthers on Saturday, but they absolutely need a big-time performance from the defense to keep this game close and I think that group is capable of doing just that.

The Pitt offense has struggled all year, but in all three of the team's losses this year the defense has done enough to keep the game within striking distance until the fourth quarter. I think the Pitt defense will be able to do that again on Saturday, and getting to the quarterback will be a big part in making that happen.