In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're thinking about Pat Narduzzi's best recruiting class, the value of development, linebacker recruiting and what Phil Jurkovec needs to do the most.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

The biggest thing Jurkovec needs to do
The simplest way I can put it is, Phil Jurkovec needs to throw touchdowns.

That’s a stupid way to start the column, but in my imagination, you’re sitting down to read this after having poured your first cup of coffee (which is, incidentally, the scenario for me as I write this), so maybe all of our brains are just waking up and we need to start simple.

Touchdown passes.

Pitt needs them. More of them. More than the 13 the Panthers got last year.

Maybe like, I don’t know, let’s say 24 of them.

24 touchdown passes. That should be the goal for Pitt this season. It’s largely an arbitrary number, but it’s one I’m picking because, over a 13-game schedule - regular season and bowl - that’s less than two touchdown passes per game on average but still indicative of multiple games with multiple touchdown passes.

To me, that seems like a low bar to clear, and throwing two touchdowns per game should be an accessible-enough goal.

Put another way, I’m not asking for a Herculean performance here where Jurkvoec throws five touchdowns every game.

I’m asking for less than two per game. 24 total. That’s all.

It’s actually a little more unique than I expected. 46 FBS teams finished the 2022 season with at least 24 passing touchdowns. That includes 26 teams from the Power Five conferences (and Notre Dame). So less than half of college football and less than half of the Power Five teams were able to hit that mark.

What’s more, throwing at least 24 passing touchdowns didn’t exactly guarantee success. Only half of the 26 Power Five teams that topped 24 passing touchdowns also hit the 10-win mark last year.

I’ll be honest: I was hoping for a higher percentage than that so I could say “If you throw 24 touchdown passes, you’ll win 10 games.” But the numbers don’t entirely back that up.

Throwing that many touchdowns doesn’t mean you’ll win that many games.

However, there is some correlation. There were 24 FBS teams that won at least 10 games last season, and 17 of them threw at least 24 passing touchdowns.

The exceptions were Air Force (which ran the ball nearly 10 times as much as it passed) and five teams - Boise State, Kansas State, LSU, Troy and Fresno State - that didn’t quite reach 24 passing touchdowns but did top 20.

The other exception was Oregon State; the Beavers went 10-3 last year while running the ball 500+ times and throwing it 300 times for 16 passing touchdowns.

My point, in my most basic bar-speak possible, is this:

You gotta throw a bunch of touchdown passes.

Phil Jurkvoec has never thrown more than 17 in a season. He hit that total in 2020, his first season at Boston College when he and Frank Cignetti worked together to build Jurkovec’s best performance as a college quarterback. He completed 61% of his passes that season and threw for 17 touchdowns and five interceptions.

(Interestingly, those numbers compare pretty favorably to Kenny Pickett’s best seasons prior to his breakout year in 2021.)

Jurkovec averaged 1.7 passing touchdowns per game that season. Multiply that by 13 games, and you end up with right around 22 passing touchdowns.

It’s not quite 24, but it’s close enough.

Probably close enough to get Pitt to 10 wins.

Maybe I should put this in the prediction section of the column. For now, I’ll leave it as a declaration:

Pitt needs 20+ touchdown passes from Phil Jurkovec, and if he throws 24, the Panthers will win 10 games.

Re-ranking 2019
There was an interesting piece in The Athletic this week. Senior college football writer Max Olson re-ranked the recruiting classes of 2019 to see how they look with the benefit of hindsight, and the results were interesting.

Some were, at least. Georgia was No. 1 on Rivals and was No. 1 in the re-ranking. Alabama stayed in the top-five. Michigan went from No. 10 on Rivals to No. 4 in the re-ranking. Ohio State made a big jump from No. 21 to No. 2, although that No. 21 was influenced by only having 17 commitments, even though those 17 included one five-star and 10 four-stars.

Clemson and Penn State all stayed near the top of the rankings, but let’s get to the interesting one:

Pitt at No. 9.

In the original Rivals rankings, the Panthers’ 2019 class was No. 49 with 19 total commitments and just one four-star (quarterback Davis Beville, who has since transferred to Oklahoma).

But the strength of the class wasn’t in the stars; it was the depth. That’s where the real stars emerged, and that’s what led Olson to rank the class No. 9.

Stars like first-round Draft pick Calijah Kancey and fellow drafted Panthers SirVocea Dennis and Brandon Hill, not to mention Matt Goncalves, Jared Wayne, A.J. Woods, Vincent Davis and more who contributed to the 2021 ACC Championship and subsequent nine-win season in 2022.

Three players from the class have already been drafted, and I’m fairly convinced Goncalves, at the very least, will join that group next spring. Defensive lineman Bam Brima could be lining up for a breakout season in 2023, too, so the book on the class of 2019 has not yet been fully written.

But is No. 9 too high for the group?

Kind of. Maybe.

If you look at some of the classes that were re-ranked behind Pitt, it’s not hard to make a case for them. Ole Miss, for instance, has produced four Draft picks from its 2019 recruiting class and nearly twice as many starters as Pitt’s class did.

Similarly, Notre Dame’s 2019 class played a big role in the Irish posting back-to-back top-10 finishes in 2020 and 2021, and it has produced a pair of All-Americans and a first-round Draft pick.

I’m not saying Pitt’s 2019 class doesn’t deserve recognition, but No. 9 might be overdoing it.

The 2019 class was the kind of class Pitt needs to sign on the reg: solid developmental players who fit what the coaches are looking for and can grow into multiyear starters and all-conference performers.

The Panthers aren’t going to have home run, star-studded classes with any kind of regularity, so to build their success, they need to develop guys like Dennis, Kancey, Hill, Goncalves and the rest.

That’s been Pat Narduzzi’s M.O., and the class of 2019 is a perfect example of it.

Evaluation and development
That leads into another discussion about recruiting that is worth having.

Ultimately, recruiting comes down to two things:

Evaluation and development.

(There’s a sales element, too; you have to convince your targeted recruits to come to your school. But that’s a different side of it.)

Coaches have to be really, really good at both sides of that equation. They have to be able to evaluate and they have to be able to develop.

Now, if you’re better at one than the other, it can offset the imbalance to some extent. But ultimately, you need to be really good at both. You need to be able to identify the guys who fit what you want to do and you need to be able to coach them up.

Part 1 and Part 2.

And while Part 2 isn’t, by definition, part of the “recruiting process,” it’s invariably something we have to consider when we do exercises like re-ranking a recruiting class. It may not be part of the recruiting process, but it’s part of the overall roster-building process.

It may even be more important than the evaluation side. Just about anybody can know good talent when they see it. But the best coaches can get the talent on campus and help it develop into championship-level talent.

At Pitt, I think a big emphasis is placed on finding the players who fit the system. I’ve heard that countless times from Pitt coaches and staffers - some version of, “We know what we’re looking for and we’re pretty good at finding it.”

I can’t say I disagree, especially on defense. The Pitt staff has built a pretty impressive run of good defenses over the last six years or so, and the coaches have done it largely with guys who didn’t always have high rankings (which isn’t quite as important) or great offer sheets (which carries a little more weight).

The Rivals evaluators didn’t think all that much of Erick Hallett (he was a 5.6 three-star) and college coaches weren’t really sold either (his only other Power Five offer was Washington State) but the Pitt coaches knew what they were looking for.

Ditto for Calijah Kancey. He was also a 5.6 three-star, and his other Power Five offers were from Georgia Tech, Kansas State, Louisville, Rutgers and South Carolina.

If I wanted to make that sound good, I would say that Kancey “picked Pitt over offers from the ACC, Big 12, SEC and Big Ten.” Let’s be honest: you’re probably not going to see any one of those teams in the College Football Playoff anytime soon.

But the Pitt coaches knew what they were looking for, and they found it in Kancey.

Then, with Hallett and Kancey and SirVocea Dennis and a whole host of other guys, the coaches got them on campus and got to work.

The evaluation process identified the recruits who fit the system, and the development process molded them into high-level players.

There are a lot of things rankings systems can’t account for, and that synergy of evaluation and development is a big one.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

What was Narduzzi’s best class?
The Athletic gave high praise to Pitt’s 2019 class by re-ranking it ninth, but it got me to wondering:

Is that Pat Narduzzi’s best class? I mean, if it gets re-ranked as a top-10 class, it must be pretty high on the list. And I agree with that: it’s high on the list. Probably one of the best.

But is it No. 1 among Narduzzi’s classes?

I say no. I think you have to go one year down the road to get Narduzzi’s best class.

The class of 2020.

That class finished as the No. 44 class in the country, but a good portion of that ranking was due to signing only 18 recruits, and I'm not getting caught up in that ranking because I think it’s a really strong class.

There are two obvious superstars at the top of the list in Jordan Addison and Israel Abanikanda. They both had outstanding careers - highlighted by all-time individual seasons - and they were both taken in the NFL Draft this spring.

I think there are two more Draft picks waiting for 2024 or 2025 in linebackers Bangally Kamara and Solomon DeShields. The class also has at least two more starters for the coming season in defensive end Dayon Hayes and offensive tackle Branson Taylor.

And that doesn’t include Ben Sauls, the star of the Sun Bowl who made 15 out of his final 16 field goals last season. I don’t know much about kickers, but I have to think Sauls is going to have a chance to get paid to kick footballs.

When it’s all said and done, the class of 2020 might end up producing as many as seven NFL players, and possibly more if somebody like Rashad Battle has a good finish to his college career.

For a comparison, the 2019 class has produced three NFL players so far (SirVocea Dennis, Brandon Hill and Calijah Kancey). Like I mentioned before, I think Matt Goncalves will be a Draft pick and Bam Brima and A.J. Woods could have a chance, too. But I’m not sure I see seven NFL players coming out of that class, despite Pitt signing one more player in 2019 than it did in 2020.

The high-water mark for Narduzzi classes, at least in terms of Draft picks and NFL players, was the 2017 class, which produced Kenny Pickett, Jaylen Twyman, Damarri Mathis, Jason Pinnock and Carter Warren.

2019 has a chance to match that. I think 2020 will get past it.

What events conspired to lead to such a strong class in 2020? That was the class that was being recruited in the wake of the ACC Coastal Division championship In 2018.

Put another way, that class was the one that got the recruiting bump from the division title.

Is Pitt done with linebackers?
A week ago I wrote in the 3-2-1 Column that I didn’t think Pitt was full at any one position in the 2024 recruiting class.

Now, after Miami (Fla.) Norland linebacker Jeremiah Marcelin announced his commitment to the Panthers on Thursday, I’m starting to wonder if that’s not true anymore.

Marcelin is the third linebacker to commit to Pitt in the class, joining Aliquippa four-star Cameron Lindsey and Red Bank Catholic (NJ) three-star Davin Brewton. If those three end up singing with the Panthers, it will make for back-to-back three-man classes at linebacker after the coaches signed Jordan Bass, Rasheem Biles and Braylan Lovelace last year.

Taking six linebackers over two classes seems like a lot, but as we said last week, Pitt needed it.

The linebacker position is top-heavy with seniors and upperclassmen this year, but the roster doesn’t have a lot in the way of young depth due to some recruiting misses. After signing Bangally Kamara and Solomon DeShields in the class of 2020, Pitt signed one linebacker in 2021 and he transferred (Preston Lavant) and two in 2022 only to see one of them (Marquan Pope) medically disqualified before he ever played.

That leaves one linebacker from the last two recruiting classes - Kyle Louis - and a pretty big hole in the depth chart after the top four of Kamara, DeShields, Shayne Simon and Brandon George.

So the coaches needed to reload, and with three linebackers in last year’s class and three this year, they seem to have accomplished the mission.

We ask again: are they done?

I think so, but I’m not entirely sure. They could be done at three, but they also have Rockledge (Fla.) three-star D.J. McCormick on campus for an official visit this weekend. McCormick committed to UCF two weeks ago and said he was cancelling his remaining official visits.

Turns out, McCormick meant that he was cancelling his remaining official visits - other than Pitt. Taking this visit is a pretty strong indicator of McCormick’s interest in the Panthers, I think, and I’m inclined to believe that if the coaches want McCormick in the class, they’ve got a pretty good shot at getting him.

It’s just a question of whether or not they want him.

More to the point, it’s a question of whether or not they want a fourth linebacker.

I kind of think they could take a fourth guy. Yes, the class is filling up and they are starting to run out of room. But if they think they’re going to fall short on the numbers at another position - like, say, I don’t know, maybe tight end? - then they might as well use an extra spot on linebacker where they’re going to run out of veteran players in a hurry over the next two years.

Either way, it’s a good problem to have, because last year’s linebacker class looks pretty good and this one looks even better. And in the big picture, that position looks like it is getting to be pretty well-stocked for the future.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt will sign (at least) six four-star recruits in the class of 2024
The end of June is probably too early to make predictions about what Pitt’s recruiting class will look like on Signing Day in December - heck, the week before Signing Day can sometimes feel like it’s too early to make those predictions - but I’m doing it today because I’m feeling some kind of way about Pitt’s class.

Simply put, I think it’s really good. Possibly shaping up to be one of Pat Narduzzi’s best. Maybe even better than that 2020 class I wrote about a minute ago.

I think the stars - and probably the ranking - will reflect that, too.

The 2016 class was the high-water mark for four-star prospects in a Narduzzi class. That year, Pitt signed Damar Hamlin, Ruben Flowers, Kaezon Pugh, George Hill and Amir Watts. The Panthers got three four-stars the next year (Paris Ford, Charles Reeves and A.J. Davis). They signed one in 2018 (Mychale Salahuddin), one in 2019 (Davis Beville), three in 2020 (Dayon Hayes, Jahvante Royal and Rashad Battle), three in 2021 (Elliot Donald, Nahki Johnson and Naquan Brown), two in 2022 (Ryan Baer and Samuel Okunlola) and one in 2023 (Isaiah Neal).

So in the last eight classes - Narduzzi’s eight full recruiting classes - Pitt has signed 19 four-star prospects, with the most being five in 2016.

I think this year will beat that.

Pitt already has three four-star recruits committed (Jahsear Whittington, Ric’Darious Farmer and Cameron Lindsey). On top of those three, the coaches have hosted - or are in the process of hosting - 11 other four-star recruits this month, and I can easily talk myself into the Panthers landing at least three of those 11.

They might get three this weekend.

And they don’t even need to get three of those 11, because I think there’s a strong case to be made for offensive line commit Caleb Holmes as a four-star prospect.

Suffice to say, there are a few paths to getting six - or more - four-star prospects in the class by the time Signing Day arrives.

Now, having a half-dozen four-star recruits doesn’t guarantee a top-20 class. Kentucky signed nine four-stars last year and finished at No. 27. Louisville signed seven and had the No. 43 class. Michigan State, Ole Miss and North Carolina signed seven four-stars each and all landed at No. 29 or worse.

But those schools all signed fewer than 20 total prospects. Pitt has already cleared that mark by quite a bit, so if the Panthers can finish with six or seven four-stars and a full class of 20+, I think a top-25 ranking - or better - is very much within reach.

For now, though, I’ll just leave my prediction at the six four-stars.