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In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're talking about support for the Pitt basketball program, the need for transfers, Pitt football's best skill players this century and a lot more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Support the program
Okay, hold on. Don’t jump to conclusions. I’m not telling you how to be a fan. That headline wasn’t for you.

For you, I’ll say this: support the Pitt basketball program or don’t. That’s up to you. If you say that four years of losing basketball (after two other years of losing basketball) has driven you away, I can’t blame you. It has been tough to watch.

Conversely, if you say you bleed blue and gold and will support the team through thick and thin, good on you. I admire your dedication to having the Panthers’ back no matter what.

But this isn’t about the fans. This isn’t about filling the Petersen Events Center or saying nice things on Twitter. Do those things or don’t. It’s your prerogative. I’m not talking about how to be a fan.

Rather, this first section of the column is aimed at people whose support most directly impacts the program and its chances for success.

This first section of the column is aimed at the people who work above Jeff Capel. The people who allocate the resources that will be available for his program. The people who decide which of Capel’s requests will get approved and which ones won’t.

Put another way, this first section of the column is aimed at people who probably won’t read it.

But that’s okay, because I’m going to say it anyway.

Those people, the people at the top of the athletic department and the university, need to support Jeff Capel.

If he’s going to be back - and, like we have tried to tell you, he’s coming back; Pitt finally confirmed this last week - then they need to get behind him. That doesn’t mean giving him a blank check, but they do need to give Capel as much resources and support as necessary to give him a chance to right the ship. Whether they believe he is capable of fixing things this year is beside the point; he’s here, he’s the coach of the Pitt basketball team, and he will spend the next year working to figure it out.

It’s incumbent upon Pitt to make sure he has a fair chance at doing it.

I’m not saying they have deprived him of resources in the past, but if there are relationships that are fractured, then they need to be mended. If there are issues between the coaching staff and the administration, then they need to be resolved. If there is a gap in the goals each side sees for the program, then it needs to be bridged.

It does no one any good to have these kinds of issues. It does no one any good to have contentious relationships or ill feelings or questions about support.

Everybody in this equation should be shooting for the same thing: winning basketball games.

I don’t know if Capel can set things right with Pitt basketball, but if the university and the athletic department are committed to him for at least one more year, then those parties owe it to the Pitt fans to make sure all reasonable efforts are made to create an environment for winning basketball.

If it works - great, and we will praise the collective efforts of all involved parties in solving the mystery of Pitt basketball.

If it doesn’t work - that’s too bad and some tough decisions will have to be made. But at least you can say you tried. At least you can say you cared enough about the program and all of its external support to put an earnest effort into fixing things internally.

If Jeff Capel is Pitt’s basketball coach, then he needs to be given the support necessary to operate the basketball program.

A way to build the roster
The next couple months - and this has already begun - are going to be all about transfers.

Transfers coming and transfers going, with probably close to the same number on each side of that ledger.

So far, Pitt has lost two players to the transfer portal. Forwards Noah Collier and Chris Payton made their decisions to leave this week; in both cases, I think those guys were looking for a better opportunity to get on the court and contribute, since neither was a significant contributor at Pitt.

Collier averaged 9.5 minutes this season as the backup to the team’s best player; Payton averaged 3.2 minutes in the 13 games he played, and while he had high-upside athleticism, he needed a lot of work.

That was the start of Pitt’s contributions to the transfer portal and it likely won’t be the last. I’m guessing at least one and maybe two or even three more guys could decide to leave, because while I believe the Pitt coaches hoped to keep Collier and Payton in the fold - they weren’t pushed out - in 2022, you’re going to lose guys to transfers every year. That’s just the way of the world (look at Pitt football, where 12 players from the reigning ACC champs have left).

That’s one end of the transfer portal. The other end is what you get out of it, and we’ve already seen that Capel and company are going to be very active in that regard this offseason.

I think there’s still a sort of reflex when it comes to transfers: those of us who have watched college sports for a long time still haven’t completely shaken the instinct of viewing transfers as castoffs who couldn’t cut it at their old school and now the new school is picking up the scraps.

There was a time when that was the case, a time when you had to view every transfer with a certain amount of skepticism.

The thing to always remember, coaches would say, is that there’s a reason guys transfer.

The implication being that transfers usually have red flags and they’re not the type of players you want to build with.

And there was truth to that - in 1996 or 2006 or even 2016. But in 2022, the game has changed, and transfers are no longer a desperation move by a coaching staff looking to fill out a roster. They are no longer lottery tickets with a low-percentage chance of delivering. They are no longer the exception.

Transfers have become the rule. They are part of college sports; more specifically, they are part of recruiting, and every coach in every sport across the country now has to pay the transfer portal almost as much attention as he or she dedicates to scouting high schoolers.

Like I said, the game has changed, and if you’re not recruiting transfers, you’re cutting yourself off from an ever-growing pool of talent.

I keep thinking of this when I see fans cry out for Capel and the Pitt staff to get more high school players from the recruiting class of 2022. There are two reasons why I’m not getting too worked up about that during this particular offseason.

1. Pitt needs to win next year, and to do that, the staff needs guys who can play right away. They need college-ready players who can come in and contribute, like Mo Gueye and Jamarius Burton did this past season. The pressure is on, and there are very few available high school players who are ACC-ready at this point. The Panthers have a much better chance of finding success with players who have a year or two or three of experience playing in college, whether it’s at the high-major, mid-major or low-major level.

2. Taking transfers doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not building a foundation for the future. I think this is a common concern: the thought that you need high school players who can grow and develop over four years to really build your program. That’s how Pitt created its success in the 2000’s, and it’s an approach that makes the most sense if you’re thinking long-term. But in 2022, transfers provide a unique brand of stability that seems counterintuitive, but due to transfer restrictions - a player can transfer and play right away, but he or she can only do it once; after that, they have to sit out a year if they transfer again - bringing in a young transfer gives you a couple years where you know that player will be on your roster.

So you can bring in an older transfer to add an experienced, ready-to-play contributor. And you can bring in a younger transfer to help build the core of your program.

This is the way of college basketball in 2022. This is where the sport is, and you don’t need to look far to find contributors in the NCAA Tournament who arrived at their current teams via the transfer portal.

A verbal commitment
Switching over to football, one of the big talking points in the South Side this week was the running game. Apparently, the offense got it going on the ground on Tuesday, so we got to talk to Israel Abanikanda, Marcus Minor and Dave Borbely.

That selection of guests worked out fine, because the running game is definitely one of the storylines heading into 2022. Pat Narduzzi has acknowledged - as recently as Tuesday - that his approach to the most recent offensive coordinator hire was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to improve the running game.

As opposed to the previous hire, which was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to improve the passing game.

As opposed to the hire previous to that, which was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to get a coordinator who would stick around.

As opposed to the hire previous to that, which was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to get a coordinator Narduzzi had worked with.

As opposed to the hire previous to that, which was motivated by…well, that was Narduzzi’s first offensive coordinator hire, so I’m not sure about the motivations for that.

But I digress.

Frank Cignetti was hired for a bunch of reasons, from his resume to his work with quarterbacks to how he utilizes skill talent. But his interest in developing a running game, which is far more serious than his predecessor, was certainly among the reasons Narduzzi tabbed him to take over Pitt’s offense.

We all know that Mark Whipple wasn’t particularly interested in running the ball. He did emphasize it from time to time, usually at the end of games (after all, keeping the clock running means everybody gets out of the stadium sooner). But his focus was on throwing the ball; that’s what he wanted to do all the time.

Now, that certainly made a lot of sense with Kenny Pickett at the helm (particularly the 2021 version of Kenny Pickett). And it’s hard to argue with the results: Whipple’s Panthers were, by almost every measure, the most prolific offense in school history. They scored more points and gained more yards than any Pitt team ever, and you would be hard-pressed to convince me that either of their two regular-season losses were due to offense (although the offense certainly had some crucial mistakes in both of those games).

And still, I don’t think anyone would deny that balance is a good thing. Especially when Pitt is heading into a season without Kenny Pickett.

Maybe Kedon Slovis will have a great year. Maybe he will have good year. Maybe he will be just okay.

In any of those three scenarios, it would be better for Pitt to have an effective running game than to not have one.

Of course, the flip side of verbally committing to running the ball better is being able to actually execute it. I thought offensive line coach Dave Borbely said something interesting on Tuesday.

“A lot of what we’re doing, these kids did in 2018 as freshmen and redshirt freshmen.”

2018? As in the year Pitt set a school record for rushing in a single season and had two 1,000-yard rushers for the first time in school history?

Interesting comparison, there.

And it would seem to indicate that Borbely believes Pitt’s struggles in running the ball the last three seasons were less a problem of ineffective play than they were a lack of a commitment to the ground game.

Cignetti seems to be committed.

We’ll see how it works out.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

What have been Pitt’s best collections of skill players this century?
We’re breaking one topic into two sections here because I got a little long-winded. But after reading this part, you can probably guess what the next one will be.

I’ve been thinking about skill players and Pitt’s semi-recent history with them. So I started looking back at the last 22 seasons from 2000 to 2021 to answer the question:

What were Pitt’s best collections of skill players?

Here’s what I’ve concluded.

I’ve got five groups of running backs, receivers and tight ends that I think stand out. In chronological order:

2000: This was a long time ago, but don’t sleep on the Y2K Panthers. I mean, they didn’t call themselves that - by the time they played their season, we all knew that computers could survive a year that ended in 00. But the 2000 team had quite a collection of talent. Antonio Bryant was the star attraction and won the Biletnikoff that year, but Latef Grim is an overlooked piece of the air assault, Kevan Barlow rushed for 1,000 yards and Kris Wilson would go on to have a strong career at Pitt. This group was good.

2003: This one is tricky, since 2002 and 2003 had essentially the same collection of players: Brandon Miree at running back, Larry Fitzgerald at receiver and Kris Wilson at tight end. Miree was more productive in 2002, mostly because he was healthy (he only played six games in 2003). But Fitzgerald and Wilson were significantly better in 2003 than they were the year before. Fitzgerald was an unstoppable force, while Wilson chipped in nine touchdown receptions. Plus, there was Princell Brockenbrough, who gets a mention if only because of the street vendor t-shirt that said “I know it’s only Brockenbrough but I like it.”

2009: This was the Cignetti triumvirate: Lewis, Baldwin and Dickerson. That would be running back Dion Lewis (1,988 yards from scrimmage and 18 total touchdowns), receiver Jonathan Baldwin (1,172 yards from scrimmage and 8 touchdowns) and tight end Dorin Dickerson (529 yards from scrimmage and 10 touchdowns). Those three went a long way in leading Pitt to its first 10-win season since the early 1980’s, and they were an extraordinary bunch.

2014: It’s weird to include a 6-7 team here, but look at the personnel on this offense: James Conner had a monster year at running back. Tyler Boyd had more than 1,200 receiving yards. And JP Holtz, Manasseh Garner and Scott Orndoff combined for seven touchdowns from the tight end position. There’s a case to be made for 2013, mostly based on how well Devin Street played that season, but Conner and Boyd - who remain two of the best in school history at their positions - were quite a bit better in 2014, so that year gets the nod.

2021: I guess the pattern here is that if you get a Biletnikoff Award winner, you make the cut. There’s more to it than that, but yeah, Jordan Addison’s performance puts last season in rarified air. Beyond him, none of the running backs individually put up eye-popping numbers, but Israel Abanikanda, Rodney Hammond and Vincent Davis combined to gain 2,136 yards from scrimmage and 19 total touchdowns. And the tight ends - Lucas Krull and Gavin Bartholomew - caught 10 touchdown passes. That’s a hell of a lot of production, both in yards and touchdowns, and when you have the most prolific offense in school history, you make the list.

The caveat, of course, is that last year’s team benefited from having the greatest single-season performance by a quarterback in Pitt history, which isn’t a given in this discussion; the 2014 team was led by Chad Voytik, for instance, while 2000 relied on the arms of John Turman and David Priestley (no disrespect to any of those guys).

Still, with that caveat in mind, I am awfully close to leaning toward 2021 as the best of that group.

But can I take them over Boyd and Conner? Or the three-headed monster of Lewis, Baldwin and Dickerson? Or Fitzgerald and anybody else?

Tough call.

How does this year’s group stack up?
Surely you can guess where this is going.

As I was watching practice this week, I started thinking about the skill players on this team.

Abanikanda and Hammond and Davis at running back.

Addison and Jared Wayne and Konata Mumpfield at receiver.

Bartholomew at tight end.

That’s an impressive group. We all know that and we’ve all talked about it a ton. We’ll probably continue talking about it for the next five months and beyond.

But here comes the inevitable question:

How does this year’s collection compare to those five groups I listed above? Specifically, can this year’s group replace one of those five?

I think there’s a chance.

Addison is the given. The sure thing. I don’t know if he’ll win the Biletnikoff again (although it’s not without precedent: Michael Crabtree went back-to-back in 2007 and 2008, and Justin Blackmon did it in 2010 and 2011) but I am fairly confident in saying that Addison will have another big year.

I’m pretty confident about Gavin Bartholomew, too. I know you have to be wary of a small sample size, but talk about getting bang for your buck: 29 targets, 28 receptions (96.9% catch rate), 326 yards and four touchdowns. 17 of his 28 receptions gained a first down or a touchdown. Bartholomew was No. 1 in the country in catch rate among tight ends with at least 25 targets, and no other ACC tight end with at least 25 targets caught more than 80% of the passes thrown to him.

The only thing that limited Bartholomew was opportunity. His 29 targets were offset by the 59 passes that went to Lucas Krull; with Krull gone to the NFL, a whole bunch of tight end passes will be up for grabs - and likely will go to Bartholomew.

And then there’s the running backs. This is where the 2022 roster can really make its push to jump into that group I mentioned earlier. I think Abanikanda, Hammond and Davis have all, to varying degrees, shown themselves to be quality running backs capable of making game-changing plays.

Abanikanda is the No. 1; I am confident about that and I think he looks like an NFL back. But Hammond really opened my eyes - probably yours, too - last season, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he does this year. And Davis is Davis. I think we know who he is, and I believe he can fill a serviceable role for this offense.

Don’t forget the numbers from last season that I posted above: 2,136 yards from scrimmage and 19 total touchdowns. Those were the combined stats for the three backs in 2021, and it’s a pretty good number overall, especially when they were playing on a team with a quarterback who threw 42 touchdowns. But I think they can do better. Their stats out to 152.6 scrimmage yards per game; I think the backs can improve on that number.

If that happens - if Abanikanda really takes off and Hammond continues developing and Davis continues being Davis - I think this group can elevate the running game and make a potentially dangerous offense even more potentially dangerous.

But that is not all. Oh no, that is not all. Because this team has more than one wide receiver, and you probably know by now that I am quite high on Wayne and Mumpfield. I think those guys are going to make a lot of big plays for this offense.

Let’s leave it at that. We all know there’s a really big x-factor here, but we’ll save that discussion for another day. For now, I am content to marvel at this collection of talent.

ONE PREDICTION

The linebackers will impress
We all know the biggest question mark on the team is the quarterback position. Not necessarily because Kedon Slovis is a concern, but because he’s something of an unknown and - perhaps more importantly - because Kenny Pickett was such a huge part of Pitt’s success last season.

The quarterback question will stay out there, but in terms of the rest of the team, the biggest question mark is probably at linebacker. Pitt has lost something like eight linebackers from the 2021 Week One roster, with three leaving after finishing their eligibility and the other five opting to transfer.

A quick aside: I think it’s fairly natural to look at those numbers and wonder if there is an issue in Pitt’s linebacker room, but I really don’t believe there’s much to be concerned about. Each of those five guys had his own reasons for leaving, and I don’t see much in the way of connective tissue from one to the next.

Still, losing multiple players with starting experience - either to graduation or to transfer - has left some holes, particularly at outside linebacker. And when you rely on players who don’t have much in the way of resumes, there are inevitably going to be concerns.

After a couple weeks of spring camp, though, I think this group has a chance to be pretty good.

SirVocea Dennis is the sure thing. He’s the leader of the defense and one of the team’s top overall players. He’s the man in the middle and he will be the steadying force for the linebackers and the defense overall.

There aren’t any questions about Dennis. The questions are mostly at the two outside linebacker spots.

Right now, it looks like third-year players Bangally Kamara and Solomon DeShields are the top candidates for those roles. Kamara saw some playing time last season and seems to have really grown into the body of a linebacker (there were concerns about his size coming out of high school).

Meanwhile, DeShields has gone from bouncing between linebacker and receiver to settling in on defense and, by all accounts, really taking off. Pat Narduzzi had a lot of praise for DeShields on Thursday, and I think he has the speed and athleticism to be an impact player at Star linebacker.

I’ll admit that I was pretty high on Kamara and DeShields as high school prospects, so maybe I have some confirmation bias, but I think those guys are going to be good.

Then you’ve got Shayne Simon, the transfer from Notre Dame who is certainly going to see a lot of playing time this season working at the Money position with Kamara. And while I think the coaches are looking for options at the Star position, converted safety Buddy Mack has emerged there, and there’s always the possibility of giving Dennis reps outside while Brandon George lines up at middle linebacker.

Granted, there’s not a ton of experience at outside linebacker, but I really like how this group profiles: good athletes who can hit. That seems like a pretty strong combination. And by the end of the season, I think there will be a whole lot of optimism about the linebackers.