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In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're thinking about Pat Narduzzi and Michigan State, a quiet Signing Day, kickers and more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Making decisions
This week certainly took an interesting turn.

Everything was quite on Tuesday morning. Pitt had two unannounced commitments, but we had a pretty good lead on who they were, so we were mostly focused on preparing content for their announcements and getting ready for Signing Day on Wednesday. Around those efforts, I was working on setting up our first live-streamed podcast; that was scheduled for 8:30 on Tuesday night, and I was looking forward to seeing how it went.

(It went really well, by the way; if you didn’t check out the live stream of the podcast on Tuesday night, you can watch it here. We’ll do it again next Tuesday night, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel in the meantime.)

So yeah, it was a quiet morning. Then our friends at SpartanMag.com, the Rivals.com Michigan State site, had some interesting news: Mark Dantonio was retiring. Or resigning. Or somehow removing himself from the head coaching position. The development was confirmed around 3 p.m. when Dantonio himself tweeted out his resignation. And when that happened, the first thought was obvious:

What does this mean for Pat Narduzzi?

Now, Michigan State is not to Pat Narduzzi what Wisconsin was to Paul Chryst. When Chryst left Pitt for Wisconsin, that was a clear and easy decision, and everyone saw it coming because Wisconsin is who Chryst is. He was born and raised there, he played there and he became a successful assistant coach there. Of course he would go back to Wisconsin when the opportunity presented itself.

Narduzzi, on the other hand, wasn’t a slam dunk with MSU. He wasn’t born there and didn’t play there; the only connection is that he coached there with Dantonio for eight seasons before coming to Pitt. That’s not something to sneeze at - eight years is a long time - but it’s also not the baked-in connections that Chryst had to Wisconsin.

None of that stopped Narduzzi’s name from getting brought up on Tuesday, though, and it was brought up a lot. My first reaction was that there wouldn’t be much to see in the situation for a few reasons. The last couple years of Dantonio’s time at MSU weren’t exactly the program’s best, either on or off the field, and it seemed to me that the administration there would want to go in a different direction from Dantonio - whereas Narduzzi seems very much like the same direction.

From Narduzzi’s side, I have always gotten the sense that he has kind of moved on from the MSU stage in his career. He and Dantonio accomplished a lot with the Spartans - just about everything you can accomplish short of a national championship. As such, it seems to me that Narduzzi came to Pitt looking to make his own way and achieve that success somewhere new.

On top of that, the 2020 Pitt team is the best Narduzzi has had since he took over the Panthers, so there are plenty of compelling reasons for a Narduzzi/Michigan State reunion to not happen.

And yet, when Narduzzi met the media on Wednesday, he spent a whole lot of time talking about decisions. In fact, when he was asked about the MSU opening, the bulk of his answer was about making decisions; it took nearly four minutes to get to the point - the point being that he wanted to stay at Pitt.

So it seems there was a decision to make (even Pitt Director of Athletics Heather Lyke said “sometimes you have to sleep on things”). And it seems that Narduzzi gave this whole situation a lot more thought than I imagined he would.

On this side of the aisle, I think we all would like to believe that Narduzzi saw the news about Dantonio, took a phone call from East Lansing and summarily dismissed the notion. But it doesn’t seem that was the case.

All that matters, though, is the end result. And the end result is that Narduzzi isn’t going anywhere. Eventually during that Wednesday press conference, he got down to brass tacks and reiterated multiple times that he doesn’t want to leave Pitt.

So that matter is put to bed. But the 24-hour stretch from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon was certainly interesting.

Another quiet February Signing Day
In other news, Wednesday was Signing Day, and as is the case for most schools across the country, it wasn’t very exciting for Pitt (the Narduzzi/MSU stuff notwithstanding). Such is life in the world of two signing periods, where a very high percentage of recruits make it official with Letters of Intent in December, leaving not much in the way of drama or available prospects for February.

This was the third year of having multiple signing periods in football, and we’ve seen the trend of fewer February signings up close with Pitt. In 2018, the Panthers signed four recruits in February: Kaymar Mimes, who was committed to Rutgers and flipped to Pitt in January; Erick Hallett and Habakkuk Baldonado, who didn’t get their offers from Pitt until January; and Mychale Salahuddin, a long-time target and one-time USC commit who made his commitment on Signing Day.

I remember at the time thinking that was a pretty low-key day, but we didn’t know how quiet it would get.

Last year, Pitt signed one recruit in February: SirVocea Dennis. This year, the number was two, as the Panthers landed four-star cornerback Rashad Battle and scholarship kicker Ben Sauls.

MORE ON THE NEWEST ADDITIONS: Pitt scores with four-star DB | Sauls gives Pitt a future at kicker

Of course, Pitt has also announced some grad transfers around the February Signing Day, but if we’re just talking about recruits, the Panthers have signed 57 in the last three classes, and 50 of them signed in December.

That has made for a pretty quiet February, and the trend probably isn’t going to change. As the shift in the recruiting calendar has firmly taken hold with spring official visits and two signing periods, coaches and recruits have fully adjusted to the change. June was always a big month in recruiting, but with official visits now available at that time of year, it has blown up.

At Pitt, the coaches have loaded the June official visit weekends and scored big out of them:

Of the 37 recruits Pitt signed in the last two classes, 26 took their official visits in June and 21 committed while they were visiting.

Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun, but she never said anything about June.

December is for the finishing touches. January and February - for the vast majority of college football - are when the remaining pieces get collected. But June is where the fun is.

That’s not to say there aren’t good players still available heading into the February Signing Day. I count 22 recruits in the Rivals250 who committed to their school after Jan. 1. Six of those prospects even went old-school and made Signing Day commitments on Wednesday.

Oh, the nostalgia of it.

Meanwhile, the other 97.6% of the Rivals250 had already made their commitments by the time Signing Day rolled around.

There’s just no juice in the February Signing Day anymore. And there probably won’t be again. If we see any real changes to the system, my guess is it would be a new signing period that is even earlier than the December one - maybe sometime in the summer, thus taking even more of the excitement out of winter recruiting.

The final verdict on the class
While there’s not much to talk about regarding Signing Day, we can use the occasion to put together some thoughts on Pitt’s 2020 recruiting class now that it is finalized.

- I’ll start by doubling down on what I have said before: that this is Pat Narduzzi’s best class since coming to Pitt. The class is ranked No. 44 nationally and No. 8 in the ACC, and those numbers are pretty average. If you look at average stars, it jumps into the mid-30s nationally and No. 6 in the conference, which is a little better. But I’m less concerned with stars and rankings than I am with the quality of the classr and how it fits on Pitt's roste, and I think this class has some serious quality.

- The offensive skill players, for instance, look like they’re as good a group as Pitt has signed in quite some time. Jordan Addison, Jaylon Barden and Israel Abanikanda should all see the field in 2020, potentially in featured roles, and I am of the opinion that Rivals under-ranked all three of those guys.

- I’m also really high on the linebackers: AJ Roberts, Solomon DeShields and Bangally Kamara look really, really good. Roberts can play Money linebacker or middle linebacker, and while DeShields and Kamara both look like they would fit at the Star position, DeShields could probably also play in the box at Money and you would have all three linebacker positions covered in one class.

- I probably did a disservice by not starting off with a nod to Dayon Hayes. The best recruit from the City League in a long time, Hayes is a big-time defensive line prospect who really stands out as the star of this class. He shouldn’t be needed in 2020, but he’ll be contributing not long after, I would think.

- I know kicker isn’t an exciting position, but by signing Ben Sauls, Pitt should have that spot more or less covered for the next five years. We’ll talk about that more in a minute.

- The other big theme to emerge from this class was that Pitt’s staff is starting to look like a pretty strong group of recruiters. At the top of the list are Charlie Partridge and Chris Beatty. Partridge was instrumental in landing Hayes and the four Florida recruits in the class, while Beatty was the point man in getting and holding onto Addison and Barden. Cory Sanders has also started to break out as a recruiter; he was involved in Hayes’ recruitment and has found some success in Philadelphia for 2021 already.

- It’s not all roses, of course. This class got two pretty good offensive line prospects but probably needed more. And the continuing issue of struggling to recruit tight ends popped up again in 2020, as the staff got a junior-college prospect and a graduate transfer but no high school tight end recruits. That’s not ideal. Nor is it ideal to finish a recruiting class without a quarterback, although getting Joey Yellen as a redshirt freshman transfer helps offset that a bit.

- Still, there were a lot of needs met in this class. Three receivers and a running back to fill out the offensive skill positions. Three defensive ends to replenish the depth there. Three linebackers to do the same. And four defensive backs to stock up the secondary.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Does Pitt need a scholarship kicker?
This is the inevitable discussion any time Pitt signs a kicker on scholarship:

Does the team really need to use a scholarship spot on a specialist? And the answer is…yes, it’s a good business practice to have a scholarship kicker.

Well, that was easy enough. On to the next question…

Okay, let’s look a little closer at kickers, because this conversation does come up every few years when Pitt recruits a scholarship kicker. It doesn’t happen all the time; Conor Lee and Dan Hutchins, who kicked Pitt from one decade to the next - and did pretty well at it - both joined the Panthers as walk-ons.

But every kicker Pitt has had since then has been a recruited scholarship player. Okay, Alex Kessman didn’t technically come to Pitt on scholarship; he came as a walk-on with something of a promise that he would go on scholarship after one semester, which is what happened.

So you have Kessman and his two predecessors, Chris Blewitt and Kevin Harper, as scholarship kickers. Assuming Sauls works out, Pitt is poised to have four recruited scholarship kickers over the course of 14 seasons, stretching from 2011 to 2024.

That still doesn’t answer the question, though: does Pitt need to recruit a scholarship kicker? After all, while Harper and Blewitt and Kessman were good, Conor Lee and Dan Hutchins were better. From 2006-10, Lee and Hutchins combined to make 91-of-114 field goals, a 79.8% success rate.

Conversely, from 2011-19, Harper, Blewitt and Kessman combined to make 142-of-204, which is only 69.6%. And it’s pretty striking to think that those three guys missed more than 60 field goals.

That seems like a lot.

But is it evidence that Pitt should not recruit a kicker?

I would say no and here’s why. Kickers are important. We all know and recognize this. We have seen games won and lost by kickers, and we know that coaches believe they are worth a scholarship because when a walk-on earns the job, he tends to go on scholarship.

So why wouldn’t you recruit a kicker if you find one who is good enough as a high school prospect to deserve a scholarship? There’s longevity in it; if you can find the right kicker and he’s good enough, you can be set for four years without having to worry about a kicker again.

That was the case with Blewitt, who was Pitt’s placekicker for four years and Kessman is going to do the same thing. Sauls is the next in line, and having a guy you can rely on for four years is quite a relief: as long as he turns out to be good - and he’s quite good as a high school prospect - then the coaches should be able to not have to worry about kickers until the class of 2024 or so.

As such, it’s not the worst thing to use one spot in a class every four years on a kicker. Maybe even a punter, too.

What should we expect from Kessman?
Since we’re talking about kickers, let’s take a few minutes to talk about Alex Kessman.

Kessman has a weird career stat line. With 95 points last season - 22 field goals and 29 PATs - he moved from outside the top 25 on Pitt’s all-time scoring list to No. 7, trailing Tony Dorsett, Chris Blewitt, James Conner, Carson Long, Conor Lee and Andy Hastings. If Kessman can get another 90 points, he will pass Hastings, Lee and Long to move into fourth place on the all-time scoring list.

He’s also got a very good shot at breaking the Pitt record for career field goals made (he has 46; Blewitt holds the record at 55) and field goals attempted (he has 66; Blewitt attempted 79).

So Kessman’s name is going in the record books. But like I said, his career stat line is weird. After three seasons, he has made 68.7% of his kicks; that’s not too weird, since Blewitt and Harper were both under 70% themselves for their careers. What’s weird about Kessman is where he has been on the field when he missed his kicks.

Kessman has missed 21 field goal attempts in the last three years; five of those 21 misses have been outside 50 yards, so that’s understandable. But he has missed just as many kicks in the 30-39 range, and it’s not a matter of volume; Kessman is 7/12 from 30-39 and 8/13 at 50+. He’s legitimately better kicking from 50 yards or more than he is kicking between 30 and 39 yards.

Even if the ball is in between those two ranges, he’s not as effective as you would like to see. Kessman has hit 18-of-26 from 40-49 yards; that’s a 69.2% success rate that doesn’t seem good enough for a kicker with his leg strength.

For further evidence of Kessman’s weird stat lines, look at last season. He couldn’t have been worse to start the year, making just three of his first eight attempts, including both kicks against UCF - misses from 35 and 41 yards that were crucial in what turned out to be a one-point game.

As you might recall, Kessman’s 3-of-8 success rate to open the season drew quite a bit of criticism and rightfully so. But after that slow start, he was pretty good: Kessman made 19 of his final 23 field goal attempts, including one stretch when he connected on 10 in a row. There was an adjustment made behind the scenes, and whatever it was, it worked.

Now he’s entering his redshirt senior season as a kicker with a somewhat inconsistent track record but coming off a strong finish to 2019. He’s got plenty of leg strength, and as long as there aren’t any more adjustments needed, he should be a reliable source of points in 2020.

ONE PREDICTION

The leaders in 2020
I’m not talking about team leadership; that’s a tough thing to predict. Instead, I’m stealing a page from this week’s Mailbag and thinking about Pitt’s leaders in a more tangible category:

Stats.

Specifically, I’m thinking about rushing and receiving and who will lead Pitt in those categories this coming season. It’s an interesting discussion because in both cases, there aren’t any clear-cut favorites.

Let’s start with the receivers, because I think there’s a little more clarity there than there is at running back. I’m fairly confident the top three targets will be Taysir Mack, Shocky Jacques-Louis and Jared Wayne. That’s an easy call because they’re the top three returning receivers and their mix of skill sets - Mack as a downfield option, Jacques-Louis as a speedy receiver to get in space and Wayne as a target with size - should create a nice trio for Kenny Pickett to work with.

If we’re going to project numbers, then, it’s probably somewhat safe to slide Jacques-Louis into the Maurice Ffrench role - which is to say, the guy who gets a billion passes thrown to him. That should be Jacques-Louis in 2020, provided he can stay healthy, and I think he can do well in that role.

Before we go further in the discussion, though, I have to mention Jordan Addison. He projects in that Ffrench role, too, and he’s a major wild card for this receiving corps and this offense. He’s already on campus learning the offense and he’s got the ability to contribute early; I’m not going to project him as a stat leader just yet, but he does sort of lurk in the background this conversation, so keep him in mind.

As for touchdowns, Mack should be the guy. His ability to make contested catches in traffic should have him scoring a lot, but for whatever reason - and there are a few - it hasn’t really happened. He has caught four touchdown passes in the last two seasons despite making 88 receptions. In 2018, he averaged 22.3 yards per reception and still only had one touchdown.

The numbers don’t add up, so there’s part of me that thinks a regression to the mean - in a positive way - could be coming for Mack in 2020. He should be this team’s leader in touchdown catches, but honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if Jacques-Louis or Wayne end up holding that title.

If I had to predict right now, though, I would say that Jacques-Louis leads the team in receptions and receiving yards and Mack leads in touchdowns, with Wayne right behind those guys in stats and Addison rounding out the top four.

I guess I didn’t really include any tight ends there, and Lucas Krull might deserve a mention. But let’s wait and see what happens on that one.

Now we turn our attention to the rushing game and things get more convoluted, or at least trickier to project. A.J. Davis was the rushing leader in 2019 with all of 530 yards and Vincent Davis led Pitt in rushing touchdowns with five. Those aren’t exactly eye-popping stats, and really, the bigger question is more about the overall production of the running game than the individuals. But for now, let’s look at those individuals.

My first gut reaction is that A.J. Davis probably won’t be the leading rusher again. He had flashes of being a solid back in 2019, but he was also really inconsistent, and while some of that is on the blocking, I can’t blame the offensive line for Davis earning just one carry in the Quick Lane Bowl (an ill-fated snap out of the Wildcat).

Vincent Davis was the star of the show that night in Detroit, registering career highs in carries (15), rushing yards (69), receptions (2) and receiving yards (27) while also scoring a touchdown. The questions with the younger Davis will always be about his size and if he’s big enough to be an every-down back; that’s one of those things that will be unknown until it actually happens, but he’s also got the particular skill set to get a lot out of a little - his breakaway speed is his biggest strength, so it could only take a few carries for him to pile up chunks of yards.

As such, I’m picking Vincent Davis as the projected rushing leader in 2020. I can’t rule out A.J. Davis and really, Todd Sibley is a forgotten man, even though he was the first Pitt back to post a 100-yard game in 2019 (it only happened twice all year) and had 54 yards on four carries out of the Wildcat in the Miami game before he got hurt and missed the rest of the season.

And just like Addison lurks as a wild card for the receivers, so too does Israel Abanikanda for the running backs. He also enrolled early and brings an extra element of speed to the offense. I think the coaches will find a way to get him on the field this season, and that’s going to mean fewer carries for one of the older backs.

Overall, I think both situations - rushing and receiving - are going to be really interesting to watch in 2020.