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In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re talking about Jeff Capel’s rough week, hoops recruiting, Pitt football transfers and more.

THREE OBSERVATIONS

That was a rough week
I imagine the last six days were about as unpleasant as any Jeff Capel has had since he got to Pitt.

Well, I guess yesterday was probably okay; nothing bad seemed to happen then. But the five days before that…yikes.

It started last Saturday, which actually didn’t look like it was going to be a bad day. Pitt was at Louisville for a rematch of the overtime win at the Petersen Events Center that had been such an emotional high, and the Panthers got off to a decent start with a 33-29 lead at halftime.

Then the bottom fell out, and it’s been all downhill from there. Pitt turned that halftime lead into a 15-point loss, scoring just 18 points in the final 20 minutes of that game. The Panthers made seven field goals after halftime at Louisville, and when they went to Clemson a few days later, they continued that trend, shooting 8-of-21 in the first half.

As an added bonus, they also stunk out the joint on defense as Clemson shot lights-out, so Pitt was down 51-23 at halftime. Even a furious 46 points on 16-of-32 shooting - including 5-of-12 from three - couldn’t overcome that deficit in the second half.

That Clemson loss was particularly rough. If Pitt’s going to grab a few more victories in the ACC, there was a handful of games that were circled as potential or even likely wins, and Clemson was certainly in that group. The Tigers had one conference win prior to hosting the Panthers; allowing them to get win No. 2 was a tremendous missed opportunity.

But the heartache wasn’t over for the first-year Pitt head coach. The day after his team flew back from South Carolina, Capel lost his latest center target when Qudus Wahab committed to Georgetown. Wahab is the No. 20 center prospect in the nation, which is still good for four-star status, and his commitment represents a continued dwindling of available options at a crucial position of need.

So, to recap, in the last six days Capel has: lost a game when leading at halftime on the road; seen his team put in a dog effort against a seemingly-beatable opponent; missed out on a recruit at a position where he desperately needs a talent upgrade.

That was Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday; I hope Capel’s Sunday and Monday were a little better.

Of course, I’m guessing Capel probably expected to have days - or weeks - like this. He knew the situation he was walking into. He knew the roster he was inheriting. He knew the program he was taking over. He knew that there were going to be rough patches, and this week has certainly been one.

Just like last week, though, when I said that the Syracuse and Duke losses didn’t change too much of my opinion about what Pitt’s season is and can be, this latest rough patch hasn’t changed too much of my expectations for Capel or what he can do with this program. I’m sure it hasn’t caused any chance in his expectations either.

It wouldn’t hurt to have a little bit of a break from the bad news, though.

Tear down the wall
As it relates to the Clemson game, though, I think there are some things that Capel definitely believes are controllable and not just the product of a difficult situation. I’m talking about effort and energy, two key themes that Capel has touched on many times this season; he really emphasized them on Tuesday night and for good reason:

In the first half, Pitt didn’t look very interested in playing with the kind of intensity that this team - like most teams - needs to be consistently successful in the ACC.

That’s the kind of thing that’s unacceptable. Yes, this team has holes, and some of those aren’t going to be corrected before the end of the season (consistent outside shooting, a scoring presence in the front court, rebounding...). But effort and energy and intensity are very much within the players’ control. They can decide how hard they work. They can decide how much they want to defend. They can decide how important it is to them.

On Tuesday night, at least in the early goings, they seemed to decide that it wasn’t very important, and that can’t continue.

The Clemson game wasn’t the first time that’s been the case - half of the Iowa game comes to mind, as well as a few other instances - and I also think fatigue is becoming something of an issue. Capel mentioned that after the Louisville game, saying that he thought the players were slowing down a bit in the second half.

I can understand that. Pitt has played 21 games; that’s a lot of basketball for the freshmen who are experiencing hoops at the highest level for the first time. A little bit of fatigue is probably inevitable. And we can call it, as others have, the freshman wall. That’s one of those nebulous concepts in sports that doesn’t always happen, but we certainly recognize it when it does.

And maybe Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens have hit a little bit of that. Or at least we thought so before Johnson put up 30 in that loss at Clemson on Tuesday night; that game made it look like Johnson is surviving the wall pretty well, and that needs to carry over to McGowens and Au’Diese Toney, who missed the Clemson game with an injury.

All three of those guys need to get over whatever slump they might be in right quick. Pitt simply can’t afford to have them struggling like they have been. Johnson did go off at Clemson, but that came after he scored a total of 17 points in losses to Duke and Louisville while shooting 8-of-20 and committing 10 turnovers with just five assists. If Johnson plays like that, the Panthers’ chances of winning go down significantly, so the Clemson game needs to be something of a rebound point for him.

McGowens, on the other hand, didn’t break any slumps in his home state on Tuesday. He scored five points on 2-of-9 shooting, and in the four games since he went off for 30 in the win over Florida State, he has averaged a little more than eight point per game and shot 31.8%. And he is averaging just slightly more made field goals per game (3.5) than turnovers per game (3.25).

Toney has struggled the most of all. Other than a 17-point outburst at N.C. State, he hasn’t scored in double figures in an ACC game and has made more than two field goals just twice (he went 3-for-10 against Florida State and Syracuse). In the last two games he played, Toney hasn’t even rebounded well, with seven total boards in those losses.

Like I said, Pitt can’t afford to have the freshmen play that way. For as much as we want to talk about the lack of outside shooting (which is true) and the lack of a scoring presence in the post (which is true) and the lack of effective rebounding (again, which is true), it’s all a nonstarter if the freshmen, especially Johnson and McGowens don’t play well.

So if there really is a freshman wall and if these freshmen really are hitting it…well, they better figure out a way over wall sooner rather than later. There are a bunch of opportunities in the next seven games; the Panthers can’t blow them like they did on Tuesday night.

At some point, Pitt will get a post
This isn’t a prediction because I don’t do that anymore (we’ll get to that in a minute). Rather, this is a simple expectation: somewhere out there is a post player who wants to come to Pitt. There has to be. There’s no way Capel can go through this recruiting cycle without landing a center, so there’s got to be one out there.

As you might imagine, this is picking up on the topic of Qudus Wahab committing to Georgetown over Pitt on Wednesday. Wahab the latest in a growing list of center prospects who have opted not to

Kofi Cockburn committed to Illinois in early January. Before that, Akok Akok committed to Connecticut in December. And before that, Aidan Igiehon committed to Louisville in October. There might be more than I’m not thinking of, but now Wahab, who is at least the fourth major target, is off the board. The list of center targets Pitt has missed on keeps getting longer, while the list of available centers in the 2019 class keeps getting shorter.

In the Rivals150, there are a couple uncommitted centers ranked above Wahab, including Tre Mitchell, who is a western Pa. native playing Connecticut, but it doesn’t seem like anything is happening there. And behind Wahab, there are a half-dozen players of varying abilities. Karim Coulibaly seems like one Capel and company have focused on, and with Wahab’s Georgetown commitment, he becomes even more of a priority.

Maybe Pitt will get him. Like I said, they have to get someone. And they probably would do well to get a junior college prospect (less likely) or graduate transfer (more likely); with so many scholarships available, they almost have to kick the tires on that front.

Ultimately, that may be the best route to take. The biggest concern is next season and how Pitt will get more production out of the frontcourt. The hope has been to land an impact center like Igiehon or Cockburn, but the reality is, Pitt was probably always going to end up with more of a developmental prospect. That’s not a terrible thing. I’m still of the opinion that Terrell Brown has the potential to grow as a player, and I think his improvement at blocking shots gives at least a little confidence that he can similarly improve as a rebounder and a post scorer.

So if Brown gets a little better and Capel can find a grad transfer to share minutes with Brown, then landing a high school prospect to develop over the next year or two before giving him heavy minutes is a workable solution. Everybody wanted to get a recruit to come in and change games right away, but maybe that’s not what Pitt is capable of at this point. After all, this program has been trending in a certain direction for awhile, and it didn’t just start with Kevin Stallings; that kind of reputation can only really be shed with tangible results, so while you and I see what Jeff Capel is doing and the impact Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens are having and we all see a foundation being built for future successes, a recruit may not see it quite the same way.

So getting the instant-impact center prospect might have been a shoot-the-moon proposition for right now. I don’t think Capel needs to adjust his recruiting philosophy or approach; he just needs to get what he can in the 2019 class, fortify the roster around Johnson and McGowens as best he can and look for a little more success in the 2020 class.

If that means Coulibaly and a grad transfer, I don’t think that’s the worst thing in the world. As long as Brown improves, that could be a viable approach for next season.

TWO QUESTIONS

Can you have it both ways?
Pitt got a commitment last weekend from Michigan grad transfer offensive lineman Nolan Ulizio. We can and will talk about his impact on the roster, but the first thing I thought of when news broke about Ulizio committing on Sunday were a few comments Pat Narduzzi made roughly 48 hours earlier.

Like this:

“It just gives the kids a way to find a different place if things don’t go perfect. I really don’t like it at all. I think kids are going to make a lot of bad decisions. We’re just teaching the kids that there’s an easier way to get out of this, instead of working hard and trying to improve your status wherever it is.”

As you know by now, Narduzzi was talking about the transfer portal, which apparently holds the names of some 2,000 or so players at all levels of college football looking for a new home. Or, at the very least, casting a line to see if any new home wants them.

Basically, any player who wants to gauge interest from other college programs can have his name entered into the portal and wait for responses. In Narduzzi’s view, players are looking at depth charts and making the decision to split if their name isn’t at the top.

He’s probably not entirely wrong about that. Some of this offseason’s most prominent transfers are quarterbacks Jalen Hurts (Alabama to Oklahoma), Justin Fields (Georgia to Ohio State) and Tate Martell (Ohio State to Miami), and they’re all changing schools are dropping down the two-deep.

But the thing about Narduzzi’s comments is that they seem a little odd when positioned next to his actions. By my count, Ulizio is the tenth scholarship transfer Narduzzi has brought to Pitt since 2015, including five over the course of the last two seasons; most of those transfers were players who didn’t seem to be headed for the top of the depth chart at their old schools.

And that’s what we’re seeing from a lot of coaches: they publicly bemoan the transfer system and express concern over turning the sport into “free agency” as they also work on getting transfers into their own programs.

Narduzzi offered that quote above literally hours before Ulizio arrived on campus for his official visit, for instance. Grad transfers are a little different from the underclassmen in the transfer portal, but still…

I suppose a lot of coaches would say that they don’t like the system but as long as it exists, it’s necessary to take advantage of it as much as they can. You don’t want to put yourself at a competitive disadvantage - or, put another way, if everyone else has a better chance to win by jumping off a cliff, you have to jump off it, too.

Like everyone else, I’m really interested to see where all of this goes on the national scale. If the NCAA rules Fields and Martell eligible to play right away, the march toward college free agency will take a giant step forward. But I’m also interested in Pitt’s path forward, largely because I’m wondering…

When is it time to develop your own players?
Transfers might always be part of the plan. If college football keeps moving closer to full-on free agency, most schools are going to continue pursuing players from other schools. Coaches will build transfers into their annual recruiting calendars and programs will make certain administrative assistants directly responsible for transfers.

That’s fine. It’s how the game is going. Kids are getting more autonomy, more control over their destinies. They’ll get a chance to try again and teams will get a chance to be the new opportunity.

But at some point, a school like Pitt has to shift away from transfers at key positions - namely, quarterback and offensive line, which make up half of the 10 transfers Narduzzi has brought to the Panthers.

That’s not an exaggeration. Nate Peterman, Max Browne, Brandon Hodges, Stefano Millin and now Uliizio - two quarterbacks and three offensive linemen in five years (with at least one more lineman being pursued by Pitt this offseason).

Now, some of that was due to the roster Narduzzi inherited. He had an open spot and needed more quarterback depth in 2015; that accounted for Peterman, who ended up being a two-year starter. And in 2017, none of the quarterbacks recruited in 2013 or 2014 - the redshirt juniors/seniors/redshirt seniors - were still on the roster; that accounted for Browne. Similarly, Pitt had some holes in offensive line recruiting from 2013-15, so Millin was needed last season.

But now Narduzzi is entering Year Five. This summer, he’ll have five recruiting classes on campus, which means the entire roster is of his making. There are no inherited personnel issues, no gaps in the classes that predated his arrival. Everybody is on this roster because Narduzzi and his staff placed them there.

And at some point, those players have to develop. At some point, the coaches have to develop them.

I’m really thinking about the offensive line here. That’s a position of development, one that grows over time and after three years of grooming, you reap the benefits with a two-year starter who is physically mature. That’s the ideal scenario, and it’s one that I thought Pitt might be moving close to. Earlier this offseason, I thought Pitt might finally be getting to the point where transfers aren’t needed on the offensive line.

But here we are.

Look, I’m all for finding talented players who can help you win games, whether they’re skill players or linemen or anyone in between. But there comes a point when it shouldn’t feel like such a…necessity to find transfer linemen. Was Ulizio a necessity? I can’t say for certain, but I know that the coaches have limited scholarships to work with this offseason and they opted to use one on him rather another high school prospect, which makes me think there was some urgency there.

And that, in turn, makes me think that the confidence in the underclassmen on the roster is lacking, which is concerning. Maybe Ulizio comes in and the underclassmen respond to the challenge and step up. Maybe Ulizio ends up serving in a backup role during his one year at Pitt. Maybe everyone takes a step forward.

That would be the ideal scenario.

Or Ulizio and another grad transfer take starting jobs at tackle and guard and the underclassmen sit for another year with garbage time and special teams as their only real contributions.

That would be less than ideal.

JUST ONE MORE THING…

Something different
Usually in this space at the end of the 3-2-1 Column I’ve offered a prediction.

And almost always, that prediction has been wrong.

Now, I’ve never taken the prediction section too seriously as a way of saying what will actually happen in the future; more often than not, it’s simply been a gateway to discuss one more topic in the column, with the “predictive” part of it being of less significance than whatever else is actually said on the subject.

But, boy howdy, those predictions have been awful.

I predicted a big game from Max Browne in the 2017 opener (he didn’t have one). I predicted any number of breakout games from Kenny Pickett in 2018 (he didn’t have any, at least not on the weeks I predicted them). I predicted wins over North Carolina and Stanford (they lost both). I predicted Pitt would get a recruit from Michigan in this class (they didn’t get any). I predicted a big game from Au’Diese Toney against Louisville (he didn’t have one).

And those are just predictions in recent memory. I’m sure if I looked back over the 18-month history of this column, I could find a hundred more terrible predictions that were (hopefully and thankfully) forgotten by the time they were proven wrong, even if that time was roughly 24 hours after publishing.

So I’m dropping the predictions, at least for now. Instead, the 1 portion of the 3-2-1 will simply be the Columbo-esque, Just One More Thing, which will be pretty much anything else on my mind. Maybe another observation, maybe another question, maybe even a prediction if I’m feeling daring.

This week, though, it’s a continuation of that last topic in the 2 Questions section. Specifically, the matter of underclassman offensive linemen. And more specifically, where they all are.

If you look at the Scholarship Board, the current returning roster - not including incoming freshmen or transfers - projects to have one redshirt senior, three redshirt juniors, five redshirt sophomores and two redshirt freshmen. One of those redshirt juniors - Jimmy Morrissey - came to Pitt as a walk-on, so that means there are three fourth-year and fifth-year linemen who were recruited to Pitt as scholarship players out of high school.

That’s a low number and a concerning one. How did it get so low? The answer, as always, is in recruiting.

The redshirt seniors on this roster would come from the recruiting class of 2015. Pitt’s haul of offensive linemen that year: Alex Paulina and Tony Pilato. And neither one of them is still on the roster. Pitt’s only fifth-year senior is Chase Brown, who came in last year as a junior-college transfer.

The fourth-year players this year come from the 2016 class. That class saw Pitt sign Brandon Ford, Bryce Hargrove, Justin Morgan and Zack Williams; only Ford and Hargrove are still on the roster.

So the two classes that should be providing the real upperclassmen, the experienced players who should lead the offensive line, the offense and the team - those two classes have produced exactly three linemen, and only two of them came in as high school recruits.

That’s why the staff has had to supplement the roster with Ulizio and potentially one more grad transfer. Morrissey has been a nice addition and will lock down the center of the line for the next two years, but the misses and lack of development in the 2015 and 2016 classes have hampered the unit overall.

Pitt can only hope that the class of 2017, which has put five scholarship linemen on the roster, can have greater success.