The 3-2-1 Column: Inching closer to football season

These are the dog days of summer in the world of college athletics. There is a sense of quiet around the Pitt football program following a busy month of recruiting in June. We take a look at where things currently stand with 2024 recruiting class with some key announcements on the horizon.

With that in mind, the 2023 football season is fast approaching and we look at what lies ahead for the Panthers in the month of September. Also, is Pat Narduzzi underrated?

All that and more in this week’s 3-2-1 Column.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

And then there were five
Pitt’s 2024 recruiting class has been talked about at length for the past month or so. It has been the primary topic of discussion, and for good reason, too. The Panthers currently sit with 20 commitments and a top 25 recruiting class, and if Signing Day were tomorrow (it isn’t) this would be Pat Narduzzi’s best recruiting class on paper, or it would be in the same ballpark of the No. 21-ranked recruiting class Pitt signed back in 2021.

The Panthers currently hold three four-star commitments in the class according to Rivals.com, which equals the amount they have brought in the past two recruiting classes combined. I don’t think they are quite done adding there, either. Pitt has 20 ‘known’ commitments, while we believe there are two outliers that have yet to make their announcement public. In the sense of fan interest, I can get the frustration there. Pat Narduzzi sends out a signal indicating Pitt has received a new commitment then….crickets.

It can be annoying, but hardly unprecedented either.

Remember last year? Jordan Bass, a three-star linebacker from Virginia and arguably the top commitment in the class of 2023, told the Pitt coaches he was committing in June, but did not make that decision public until before the first game of his senior year. The delay caused angst and tension among Pitt fans, but he stuck to his word and signed with the Panthers in December.

I think we may have a few similar situations here.

So let’s review where things stand as of today on Friday, July 14th. Pitt hosted 38 official visitors in the month of June; 19 of those prospects are currently committed to Pitt. (As a side note, Pitt commitment Tayshawn Banks never made an official visit and that could be telling). There are 14 prospects who have committed elsewhere, with recent decisions from Nicholas Marsh re-committing to Michigan State and Mylachi Williams opting to go to Penn State. There are some prior ones that stung Pitt more than others; Koy Beasley tp Purdue, Dominic Kirks to Washington and Gabriel Williams to Virginia Tech come to mind in that department.

That leaves us with five unannounced decisions, but we should get some sense of clarity on most of these before the month is over…I think.

Ryan Howerton will be the first domino to fall here. Howerton is set to make a decision tomorrow with a final grouping of Pitt, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia Tech and Howard. He officially visited Pitt, Maryland and West Virginia, and really, this could be a battle between the Panthers and Howerton opting to stay and play for the home state Terrapins.

Pitt is at five offensive linemen in the class and I do think that’s a hefty number for a class, but I do also believe the Panthers would welcome Howerton’s commitment. I just don’t have a good read on tomorrow’s decision.

The next to make a decision, or at least have a public commitment date, is Zy’Marion Lang. The four-star wide receiver from Florida announced his top four consisting of Pitt, South Carolina, Kansas State, and South Florida. He will make his decision on July 30th. Pitt was the only finalist to host Lang for an official visit in June, but he has been to South Carolina before and those are the two likely options here.

Beyond that, there are three other official visitors without defined commitment dates. Sincere Edwards is a four-star defensive end out of Florida who was committed to UCF and backed away from that on the eve of his official visit to Pitt. The Panthers seem like the favorite here, whenever he does come up with an announcement. Yasin Willis, a four-star running back out of New Jersey, took official visits to Pitt and Rutgers in June. Alabama is lingering around as well, as Willis took an unofficial visit to Tuscaloosa last month. Again, Pitt seems like the spot.

The other official visitor without a defined commitment date is Trever Jackson, but he recently indicated it could happen sometime in August. The three-star quarterback has always been drawn to Pitt, but a recent push from Texas A&M and new offers from Oklahoma and Ole Miss have definitely muddied the waters and it is hard to get read entirely until he probably takes visits to those new contenders.

A long September
The world of college football is slowly transitioning from the rush of June official visits and now the focus is starting to become more about the pending 2023 season. July can be a quiet month on the calendar and this is really the only chance college coaches can get away and have a little bit of a vacation before everything ramps up for fall training camp.

The Panther-Lair.com staff has embraced that change in the calendar, as we have begun breaking down the roster by position and have also started to get an early look at the upcoming schedule in preparation for the season.

The 2023 Pitt football schedule does not quite have that same full throttle start as it did last year when the Panthers opened with two marquee back-to-back games with West Virginia and Tennessee, but I still think this is a big, tone-setting month for the program.

Pitt opens with Wofford and the Panthers have a 20-1 all-time record against FCS opponents. There is some intrigue with the Terriers being coached by former Pitt offensive coordinator Shawn Watson, but that should be a layup for the Panthers.

The schedule gets a little more interesting after that.

Pitt plays host to Cincinnati in Week Two, reigniting a ‘rivalry’ from the old Big East days. The following week the Panthers will head down I-79 making a return to to Morgantown for the first time since 2011 for a primetime nationally televised game.

Cincinnati is coming off one of the best stretches in school history, but with Luke Fickell heading to Wisconsin in the offseason, the program will have a new look in its inaugural year in the Big 12. The Bearcats should present some challenges with a stout defense, but the offense remains a question. They were selected 13th in the new-look 14-team Big 12.

The only team picked lower in that preseason poll was West Virginia. Neal Brown’s tenure has been rocky to say the least. The Mountaineers have seemingly been unable to sustain any sort of momentum under Brown’s watch and they have had a revolving door with the transfer portal. As we saw last year, they’ll be up for the game and playing under the lights in Morgantown will not be a walk in the park

The month concludes with a pair of ACC tilts, the first of which could be Pitt’s toughest conference game all year. The Panthers will welcome North Carolina to town in week four, and will be tasked with slowing down Heisman hopeful Drake Maye, something they were unable to do a year ago. Maye lit up the Panthers for five touchdown passes in 2022 in Chapel Hill and with four players drafted off of Pitt's defense, it won't make facing him any easier in 2023.

The month concludes with an always tricky visit to Lane Stadium to take on Virginia Tech. The Hokies have a lot of question marks as a team, but they do have one of the better home field advantages in the league and will get Pitt obviously coming off of a tough UNC contest.

I think the schedule can be considered favorable for Pat Narduzzi’s squad, because on paper they are playing an FCS team, two teams picked at the bottom of the Big 12, and one that will be picked similarly in the ACC. Having said that, we’re still not exactly sure what to expect with this particular Pitt team either. The Panthers lost a talented senior class and will also enter the season with a transfer portal quarterback for the second consecutive season and as we saw in 2022, it’s hard to gauge how that fit works until you actually see it on the field.

September of 2023 isn’t quite the same gauntlet the team faced last season, but there are some landmines. Playing your archival on the road at night on national TV is never easy and also facing off against one of the best quarterbacks the following week isn’t a forgiving rebound, either.

Tight end is a question mark
It is ‘Tight End Week’ at Panther-Lair.com and all week long Chris Peak has been breaking down the position from all angles, and really, it’s hard to be inspired with where everything stands after reading some of the fine work he put together.

After years of futility at this spot, the Pitt tight ends had a breakout campaign in 2021. Lucas Krull and Gavin Bartholomew combined for 66 catches for 777 yards and 10 touchdowns that season with Kenny Pickett spreading the wealth around, but that production slipped last year. Bartholmew and junior college transfer Karter Johnson combined for 27 catches for 372 yards and just two touchdowns in 2022.

Those two are back and the Panthers went to the portal for some help. Malcolm Epps comes to Pitt after three seasons at Texas and more recently two years at USC. Epps totaled just 13 catches over the past two years with the Trojans.

The depth chart is rounded out by a pair of redshirt sophomores: Cole Mitchell and Jake Renda. Neither player has caught a pass in their first two seasons, in fact they’ve never played an offensive snap for the Panthers either.

I know that all sounds bleak, and there really is no way to sugarcoat it. There is some sense of optimism, though, because Bartholoew is a talented player and there are some potential reasons why he did not make as much of an impact last season like he did in 2021.

Bartholomew is a big, strong athlete. He can do some things nobody else on the roster can do. Remember the catch, hurdle, and touchdown against Tennessee last year? Yea, that’s not typical, everyday stuff. Bartholomew is a good player and there are ways he can be involved more, and also reasons why he wasn't used as much last season, too.

First of all, Bartholomew had more targets last season as opposed to his freshman year, but less catches. I don’t necessarily buy he wasn’t utilized enough, but I wonder if he was miscast. I also suspect he had a quarterback not used to having a tight end in general. Kedon Slovis came from a school that wasn’t tight end heavy (see Malcolm Epps’ catch totals), so it was a weird fit.

He also sort of played more of an H-Back role in 2021, while Krull was kind of the more traditional in-line tight end. Bartholomew was option No. 1 at tight end last season, and if you think about it, the 2022 season was the first time he ever really had to do that. Bartholomew lined up at like ten different positions playing for a small high school and I don’t think tight end was ever part of his role.

So in review, Bartholomew was playing a new spot, with a new quarterback throwing him the ball, and a new coordinator calling the plays. It just didn’t go as smoothly for a variety of reasons.

There still can be a happy medium here.

Frank Cignetti Jr. is a play caller who likes having a tight end. Looking back to the 2020 season when he was at Boston College (with Jurkovec at QB), Hunter Long was an All-American tight end with 57 catches for 685 yards and five touchdowns.

I’m willing to wait and see here. I think Pitt has a quarterback-coordinator combination that will use a tight end. I also feel Bartholomew has some talent. This whole thing might work, but considering how last year played out and the lack of an impact newcomer brought in, there is every reason to at least be skeptical of Pitt’s tight ends right now here in July.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Is Pat Narduzzi underrated?
I get what it is like to come up with offseason content writing about college football because sometimes you need to fill the gaps before the season actually starts. I am always hyper-focused on what Pitt is doing, but more national outlets have some more broad topics they can go to throughout the summer to help pass the time.

There is always a popular topic that pops up in July and that is ranking head coaches, either nationally or by conference. I caught one a few weeks ago by CBS Sports which ranked the 14 coaches in the ACC 1-14.

I could be wrong here, but of the 14 head coaches in this league, only two of them have ever actually won this league. Dabo Swinney has eight ACC titles, two national championships, and anyone ranking him anywhere lower than No. 1 on this list would obviously be crazy. Swinney, of course, was the top-ranked coach on the list.

The other, of course, is Pat Narduzzi. In that same ranking he was ranked sixth. Let me ask the obvious question here…Why?

In my world of ranking ACC coaches, I’d probably have Mack Brown No. 2, maybe not so much for his current North Carolina tenure, but his overall body of work with 274 career wins and a national title to his name. I don’t think anyone can really justify having Narduzzi any lower than third, and certainly not sixth.

For some reason Dave Clawson comes in second. Clawson is a good coach and he works a difficult job at Wake Forest, but I tend to rely on numbers. Clawson’s ACC record in nine seasons is 29-42. If you are only beating your peers 41% of the time, I have to assume there are a few coaches doing a better job than you are.

Narduzzi is 2-0 in head-to-head meeting with Clawson, including a 24-point win in the 2021 ACC Championship game, which again, something Clawson does not have on his resume.

Sure the argument could be made Pitt has better resources than Wake Forest, but the same could be said about other teams in the league over Pitt, right? The Panthers don’t have the recruiting base of Miami, the financials of North Carolina, or the fan base of Virginia Tech, but Pitt has been a better program under Narduzzi of late.

Jay Norvell is ranked ahead of Narduzzi, and in time that could prove to be true, but we’re talking one good season to date. Dave Doeren has a losing ACC record in ten years, zero 10-win seasons, and no ACC championships. Doeren also only has one win against Clemson in nine tries, and for context Narduzzi has two victories over the mighty Tigers in four attempts.

Pitt’s 41 ACC wins since Narduzzi’s arrival in 2015 is the second best in the league behind only Clemson. The Panthers have the most draft picks in the league over the past three years -more than Clemson? and yea the only program recently with a title - besides Clemson.

Is Narduzzi a perfect coach? Of course not, nobody is trying to say differently. Every coach has their flaws. The recruiting could always be better, the revolving door of offensive coordinators isn’t exactly ideal, and they still could do a better job to avoid a bad loss or two each year, for instance Pitt was a head-scratching loss from Georgia Tech away from back-to-back 10 win seasons.

Even with all of that in mind, are there five sitting coaches in the ACC doing a better job than him right now? I don’t think.

What is the best position on the roster?
In our weekly discussion on the Panther-Lair.com podcast this past Wednesday, Chris and I discussed the best and worst position groups on the Pitt football roster. We touched at length about maybe some of the weak links, but still hit the best spots.

I think I was down to two groups for this particular question and I initially said cornerback on the podcast. I’m pretty confident with that group on the defensive side of the ball. Marquis Williams is a steady player, MJ Devonshire has pro potential, and AJ Woods is a reliable No. 3, not to mention some up and coming depth waiting in the wings. That is a good position group and you wouldn’t be wrong to say that’s the best spot on the roster right now.

After sitting back and pondering about it, I’m starting to think, at least for me, I’m most confident about the offensive line on this current Pitt roster. Sure the Panthers lost Carter Warren to the NFL and also mainstays from past two years like Gabe Houy and Marcus Minor, but there is a lot to like about what is still available to assistant coach Dave Borbely.

Matt Goncalves has never technically 'won’ a starting job out of training camp for Pitt, but he does have 21 career starts to his name due to some injuries ahead of him. He started all 13 games last season and was a third-team all-ACC pick. Goncalves can play either tackle position and he does both well and I think being firmly entrenched in one spot this year will be a big boost to his ability as both a player and as a draft prospect.

Jake Kradel has started 38 games over his career at Pitt. He was an intricate part of Kenny Pickett’s Heisman campaign in 2021 and helped pave the way for Israel Abanikanda’s nation-leading 21 touchdowns last year. Kradel is probably kicking inside to center full time this year, which shouldn't be a big deal after playing it for a good chunk of last season.

Blake Zubovic, like Goncalves, has never been a starter on Pitt’s depth chart but has done it 16 times in his career. He has been a reliable sixth-man for years and should be walking into a seamless transition as a full-time starter this year.

There are some other veterans in the mix, but I’m also really high on redshirt freshman Ryan Baer out of Ohio. He was the prized recruit for Pitt back in 2022 and landing him was a direct win over Michigan State and Kentucky, two of Pitt’s stiffest competitors for Ohio talent on the recruiting trail. I’m not sure where Baer plugs in to start the season, but it will be hard to keep the 6’7” and 330-pounder off the field for very long.

There always seems to be question marks about Pitt’s offensive line recruiting, and they have certainly benefited from the extra year of eligibility produced by COVID, but these past two years have been really good in that regard. Borbely is doing a good job working his room and I suspect it’ll be another strong year up front. Given the questions elsewhere on offense, the stability here adds an extra layer of security for this team.

One Prediction

The class of 2022 breaks through
Pitt had a very experienced team heading into the 2022 season. The Panthers brought back a lot of their key pieces from their 2021 ACC Championship run, which sort of created a two-fold issue for the class of 2022. For starters, it limited how many players Pitt could bring into the program, as the Panthers signed only 13 recruits that year. Aside from cutting down on roster spaces, the returning group also limited playing time. When you have a roster full of experienced players, you aren’t looking for freshmen to plug in and play all that much.

The only freshman to burn through his redshirt last year was Sam Vander Haar, a punter, who has since transferred away from the program. It should be also noted Jordaan Bailey never made it to campus and Marquan Pope had to medically retire. Karter Johnson was a member of the recruiting class, but came from the JuCo ranks.

Once you take all that away, Pitt has just nine redshirt freshmen, or members of that 2022 class still in tact. It's a small number, but I think they have some players who could really break though this year.

I won’t rehash much here, but I’m obviously high on Ryan Baer. He could start week one in my eyes, or at the very least be starting by the end of the year. Baer looks the part physically and has as much upside for a linemen at Pitt as I can recall in recent memory.

I think you could point to a pair of defensive linemen who fit that same bill. The defensive end spot will definitely have a new look this year and a guy like Samuel Okunlola, a former four-star recruit, is certainly a candidate to break in and get some snaps. Looking inside, Pitt has more depth at defensive tackle, but local product Sean FitzSimmons may have one of the quickest first steps in the room and is a naturally disruptive player. It will be tough to keep him off the field.

I think Pitt has three good cornerbacks, but I wouldn’t dismiss Ryland Gandy cracking the depth chart as the No. 4 with eventually starting in 2023. He should see the field this season as well.

The class of 2022 did not come in with a lot of numbers, but there are definitely some impact players in this bunch,. I expect we will see some major contributions from this group starting in September.