MORE HEADLINES - Mailbag: 8/18/2018 - On the DL, the RBs, the redshirts and more | FREE ARTICLE: Mack will provide immediate help | What stood out in Pitt's most recent practice? | Training camp video: Ball security and the DL | Slideshow: Photos of QBs, TEs and more from this week | FREE ARTICLE: How can Shawn Watson fix the offense in 2018?

In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about Taysir Mack, Chase Pine, season tickets, scoring numbers and just what exactly they’re going to do with Paris Ford.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

An answer - and another question mark
The biggest news this week - possibly the biggest news to come out of training camp - was that transfer receiver Taysir Mack will be eligible to play this season.

Mack arrived at Pitt in January as a transfer from Indiana, and initially, it seemed very unlikely he would be able to get on the field in 2018, barring a rule change that was never passed. As spring turned to summer, though, and the NCAA seemed to be setting a new precedent - or at least lowering the bar - with regards to granting immediate eligibility to transfers. And as each new transfer was granted immediate eligibility, Mack and people at Pitt grew more hopeful.

On Thursday, the news came down that Mack would be eligible to play this season, and not surprisingly, it was well-received - most of all by the Pitt coaches and players, who are eagerly anticipating seeing Mack’s contributions.

That’s for good reason: he was generally spoken of as the best receiver in spring camp. That might be a bit of faint praise or at least context-worthy, since Pitt’s numbers at receiver seemed to be cut in half this spring, beset by injuries and “limited” status. But still, Mack impressed onlookers from the time he arrived, and he was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise uneventful spring game (three catches for 62 yards).

In addition to the promise Mack showed in the spring and late in his lone active season at Indiana is the matter of the returning receiving corps. Quite simply, and as many have noted, there’s not a lot to go on there. Maurice Ffrench and Aaron Mathews and Tre Tipton are all junior-eligible this season and long past the point of being “young players with upside,” despite having minimal career production. Rafael Araujo-Lopes led Pitt in 2017 with 43 receptions, which was the second-lowest total by a Pitt leading receiver since 2008 (Jester Weah caught fewer passes in 2016, but he averaged more than 24 yards per catch and scored 10 touchdowns; Araujo-Lopes averaged 12.3 and scored twice).

Beyond those four, Pitt’s scholarship receiving corps is made up of three redshirt freshmen, two freshmen and Mack. That’s not much, so the addition of anyone with experience and some tangible success will be welcomed.

But, much like his teammates, Mack is still somewhat unproven. He finished the 2017 season at Indiana on a high note, catching seven passes for 132 yards and a touchdown against Purdue, and he also had seven catches for 111 yards and two scores earlier in the season against Charleston Southern. In the other 10 games he played, though, he had 67 yards and nine catches.

Of course, Indiana had some good pass-catchers like Simmie Cobbs and Ian Thomas - they’re both in the NFL - eating up targets, which limited Mack’s opportunities. But it remains to be seen if the Purdue game was the first step in a very productive career or an outlier.

We’ll get an answer to that this season, and while I’m inclined to think Mack will help Pitt’s passing game quite a bit - he’s got good size, runs well and has experience in a productive pass offense - we’ll have to wait and see what he can do (as with so many other positions on the team).

It’s certainly a positive to get him eligible for 2018; there’s no denying that. Pitt needs breakout performances - plural - at receiver this season, and with so many unknowns and unproven players, the more bodies they have at the position, the better. Mack will increase the competition for playing time, and even though the coaches want a “posse” mentality and will focus on a rotation, some players will get more snaps than others.

The NCAA’s decision to let Mack play this season will make quite a few guys work a little harder to make sure they’re getting their share of snaps.

Something else was missing from Pitt’s scoring in 2017
I wrote this week about the challenge facing Shawn Watson as he tries to get Pitt’s offense back to - or at least closer to - its 2016 levels after the scoring fell off a cliff last season.

In the course of writing that article, I was first particularly struck by how severe the drop-off was from 2016 to 2017. I mean, we all know that Pitt scored a lot less last season than it did the previous year. But a drop-off of 17 points per game? That’s how much things fell from 2016 (40.9 ppg) to 2017 (23.9 ppg), and that’s the biggest year-to-year decrease in scoring for a Pitt team since 1970. The next biggest drop I could find was when the 1978 Panthers averaged 21.9 points per game - a fall of 13.8 ppg from 1977.

Even the 2007 team, which has drawn quite a few comparisons to 2017 and even averaged less points per game than last year’s squad did, still wasn’t as big of a drop-off from the previous season (Pitt averaged 31.8 ppg in 2006 and 22.8 in 2007).

So yeah, the 2017 scoring pretty much fell off a cliff. That’s been well-established. And while Watson shares the blame for that with the inconsistency and general ineffectiveness at quarterback, there was something else I saw in the stats that was interesting:

The non-offensive touchdowns.

For all we talk about Matt Canada and how well he coached and designed and called the offense in 2016, something else put points on the board and it didn’t have anything to do with Canada. Pitt scored eight non-offensive touchdowns in 2016.

That’s a significant number. In fact, only one Power Five school scored more, and that was Alabama, who had an absurd 11 touchdowns from defense alone. The Tide added five punt return touchdowns to finish with 15 non-offensive touchdowns; Pitt was second in the Power Five conferences with eight (four on defense, three kick return and one punt return).

For as good as that offense was, it wasn’t really good for 40 points on any given Saturday the way that scoring average would indicate. Pitt scored four offensive touchdowns at Oklahoma State, four at North Carolina, four at Georgia Tech, four at Virginia, three at Miami and three against Northwestern. There were outbursts, to be sure, but they were mostly in five games: Pitt had five touchdowns against Penn State, five against Virginia Tech, six at Clemson, seven against Duke, 10 against Syracuse.

And that last one definitely skewed the scoring average, as you expect from a 76-point game.

Now, this is not to say the 2017 offense should be viewed in a more favorable light. I’m separating four-touchdown games from five-touchdown games when I’m talking about 2016; if we talk about 2017, we’re looking at only one game with four offensive touchdowns against Power Five competition (North Carolina, which Pitt lost) and six with two or fewer touchdowns.

The drop-off is real and there’s no mistaking it: Pitt’s offense was ineffective last season, and that’s putting it nicely. But the overall scoring effort was also hurt by a similar drop in non-offensive touchdowns. After scoring eight of those in 2016, Pitt got just four last season.

That’s not a huge amount in the total points - a drop of 28 points spread over 12 games is a little more than two points per game - but it’s probably some “hidden” scoring that should be taken into consideration.

Pine’s move is a good one for a few reasons
Aside from Taysir Mack’s eligibility, the other notable news this week was that Chase Pine had moved from linebacker to defensive end.

As you might expect, the news of a backup linebacker moving to backup defensive end wasn’t earth-shattering, but it was notable nonetheless for a few reasons. For starters, it adds a little more depth to the ends - a position group that has an odd combination of extremes, with four returning players and four freshmen. Pine could be counted as a sort of mid-class addition, a redshirt sophomore who fits between the two redshirt seniors, Dewayne Hendrix and James Folston, and the two redshirt freshmen, Patrick Jones and Rashad Weaver.

Pine doesn’t have experience playing defensive end in a game, but he does have experience, having appeared in nine games at linebacker last season. He came on late in the season, too, earning extensive playing time at Virginia Tech and recording six tackles in Blacksburg.

At a listed 6’2” and 250 pounds, Pine has a good build for a defensive end, as the Pitt coaches have been willing to use a mix of different-sized ends. I don’t know if he’ll be a fixture in the top-four rotation - my guess is we’ll see him used situationally, even in situations where he is standing up as a pass-rusher - but I think it’s certainly a positive to add an impactful big athlete like him to the mix at end.

Moreover, I think Pine’s move says something about depth - not depth at defensive end, where another experienced player can help, but depth at linebacker. Because to make this move with a guy who showed promise as recently as the penultimate game of last season, the coaches had to feel good about the players who would be replacing him.

That is to say, they wouldn’t have moved Pine if they didn’t feel like they had solid depth at linebacker. But the coaches do feel that way, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to understand why.

Right now, after moving Pine, they have 10 scholarship linebackers on the roster. Three of those are redshirt seniors, and they are the likely starters: Quintin Wirginis, Seun Idowu and Elijah Zeise. Then there’s Saleem Brightwell, who started every game in 2017 at middle linebacker and is, according to linebacker coach Rob Harley, pretty even with Zeise in the battle for the starting middle linebacker job. And there’s Elias Reynolds, the backup at middle linebacker who, like Pine, showed flashes in his first active season last year. And there’s Anthony McKee, a redshirt junior who has played sparingly but was named the most improved defensive player in spring camp.

So that’s six upperclassmen. Plus the coaches have Cam Bright, Kyle Nunn and Albert Tucker as redshirt freshman outside linebackers. And freshman Wendell Davis is working well enough at middle linebacker that he could get four games or less of on-field action this season.

A legit two-deep of experienced and veteran players and four promising freshmen. Pitt hasn’t had a set of linebackers like that in a long time. Even when they were sitting Scott McKillop behind H.B. Blades and Clint Session, the depth wasn’t this strong (the top end might have been stronger, but the depth was not).

I don’t want to say Chase Pine was a luxury at linebacker, but the depth made the coaches willing to look at different options. So I would call this move a win for both the ends and the linebackers.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Can the tackles produce more?
I’ve written a lot about the defensive ends over the last couple weeks (or more) and how that position group needs to put up better numbers in 2018 than it has in, well, quite some time.

But you know what? The tackles need to pull a little more weight, too.

That occurred to me this week when I was writing about redshirt freshman Jaylen Twyman and how he could help Pitt this season. I started looking back at the production of Pitt’s defensive tackles in recent years, and the numbers are not great.

Shakir Soto had a nice season in 2016 when he put up 10 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks. But other than that, Pitt’s defensive tackle production has largely been nonexistent in recent years Of course, Aaron Donald was incredible in his final two seasons at Pitt, but if you look over the last five seasons, the tackles not named Aaron Donald averaged 11.1 tackles for loss and 4.1 sacks per season.

That’s criminally low. Even at a position that isn’t always expected to create stats, that’s really poor production. 4.1 sacks per season? As a combined total out of multiple players?

Those numbers have to improve. Getting Twyman involved should help. He’s an explosive athlete at tackle and should make an impact. But one man can’t do it alone, and Pitt will need Amir Watts and Keyshon Camp to get into the backfield and make an impact, too, in addition to getting the reliably solid play of Shane Roy.

Defensive tackle isn’t really a glamorous position, and it’s not one that has gotten a lot of scrutiny over the last couple seasons; rather, the scrutiny has been reserved for the linebackers and the cornerbacks and the defensive ends and the safeties. Somehow, the tackles have fallen off the radar in that regard. But they need to produce more and should be expected to produce more - starting this season.

Will season ticket sales translate to season ticket usage?
Heather Lyke talked to the media for a bit this week and discussed a few things related to ticket sales. First off, she said that the Penn State game is officially sold out.

That was pretty much inevitable, although it was interesting to me that Lyke and ticketing director Ben Smith took a slightly different approach with the PSU tickets and season tickets this year than what was taken two years ago. The plan was to cut back on the number of season ticket packages available so they could get more additional tickets to the PSU game for season ticket holders.

The idea is that if you put those extra tickets in the hands of season ticket holders, then those seats are more likely to be filled by Pitt fans. And that makes sense.

What I wonder is, will those seats be filled by Pitt fans later in the season too? Because if a number of those seats were single-game add-ons to season ticket packages, then presumably those seats will be available for single-game purchases later in the season, and what’s the likelihood of anyone buying them and filling those seats when Pitt hosts Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech?

Now, selling the season ticket packages isn’t a guarantee that people will show up. We saw that two years ago when a ton of season tickets were sold and the six non-PSU games averaged roughly 42,000. The worst example was the Duke game in 2016, when Pitt came home triumphant after upsetting Clemson on the road and was welcomed by an announced crowd of 35,425 - and that number shrunk by a thousand for the regular-season finale a week later.

The tickets were sold, but nobody was home.

Some of those tickets, of course, went to Penn State fans. While the numbers will never be as inflated as some PSU fans would have you believe, it’s certainly true that a fair number of those fans did buy season ticket packages in 2016 and did so once again this season. And those guys weren’t going to the Duke game.

But the bigger reality and the bigger problem is that a whole bunch of Pitt fans bought season tickets in 2016 and a whole bunch of those fans stayed home for the rest of the season. The Georgia Tech game, with its retro uniforms drew 47,425; none of the final three home games hit 41,000.

Consistent, sustained winning (and appealing opponents) will draw people to Heinz Field; we know that. And selling people season tickets is no guarantee that those people will actually attend the games; we know that, too. But I have to think that people are at least a little more likely to go to the games if they have already bought the tickets than they would be if they have to seek out single-game tickets.

Either way, Lyke and Smith said they are looking at around 50,000 season tickets sold. Will those 50,000 show up for Syracuse on October 6? Or Duke three weeks later? Finding a way to get butts in the seats for those non-marquee games has been the No. 1 goal for every Pitt athletic director since Steve Pederson the First, and no one has solved that puzzle yet.

ONE PREDICTION WE’LL MAKE

Ford will be involved
He’s the most hyped redshirt freshman since Rod Rutherford. He’s been a topic of conversation in interviews, practice reports and message board conversation virtually every day of training camp. And the intrigue seems to grow daily.

Of course, I’m talking about Paris Ford, the redshirt freshman from Steel Valley who was the highest-rated recruit to sign with Pitt in close to 10 years. He’s a great athlete with tremendous instincts and all the tools to be a standout in the ACC and at the next level. Everything points to him being a star.

But since he arrived late to training camp last summer due to academic issues, he ended up redshirting. That turn of events made his legend grow - his exploits on the scout team were spoken of in the kind of tones that are hushed by awe - but it also grew the enigma. Until the spring game, the public hadn’t seen Ford on the field in more than a year.

Could he still play at the level everyone expected him to reach? And if he did, where would he be playing?

Succinctly, the answers to those questions are yes and everywhere.

Quite honestly, I think there are very few positional options you can rule out for Paris Ford at this point. He joked that he would line up at center; I would say that’s not happening (Jimmy Morrissey’s not the heaviest guy on the team, but still). He’s not playing any position on the line, but is there anywhere else that would surprise you?

Safety? He’s done that. Corner? He moved there this spring? Linebacker? There are certain nickel roles in this defense that he could play in the middle of the formation. Wide receiver? That’s probably going to happen. Running back? That did happen in the spring game. Quarterback? I mean, they have a pretty good quarterback, but a direct snap probably isn’t out of the question.

The point is this:

Paris Ford is going to play in 2018. He’s probably going to play a lot and he’s probably going to play in some different spots on both sides of the ball. It might not happen much against Albany, but you can bet Penn State will be watching for No. 12 - and for good reason.

Hey, I just realized: Rod Rutherford wore 12, too. And didn't he play against Penn State as a redshirt freshman once upon a time?