The 3-2-1 Column: Offense, defense, penalties, legacy and more

In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're thinking about the troubling trend of Pitt's offense, the promising future of Pitt's defense, the penalty problem, Narduzzi's legacy and a lot more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

The forest and the trees
This section of the column consists of the three things we know, but first, here’s one thing I hate.

I hate when we miss the forest for the trees.

In sports terms, the trees are those one or two plays, usually at the end of a game, that get all the attention for causing the outcome. But in reality, the real source of a game’s outcome is usually much broader throughout the game. It’s the forest, and we miss it sometimes when we get distracted by one or two plays or calls here or there.

I’ve done it myself. In the aftermath of Pitt’s loss at North Carolina in 2016, a game that was lost clearly and fully by the defense, I ended up making a case that the offense should have won that game. Pitt’s offense scored four touchdowns and put up more than 400 yards, but I was claiming that the offense should have won it.

Why? Why did I brush off Pitt giving up 453 yards to Mitch Trubisky and 208 yards to Ryan Switzer? Why did I excuse Pitt letting UNC convert all four of its fourth-down attempts, including three on its game-winning drive?

What was my rationale?

Because on the drive before UNC’s game-winner, Pitt faced third-and-8 with the clock ticking under four minutes and ran a screen pass to James Conner that got stopped for no gain.

The offense could have closed the game out with a sustained drive; instead, UNC called a timeout and Pitt punted to the Tar Heels, who took the ball at their own 37 with 3:35 and two timeous.

We know what happened after that: Pitt’s defense let Trubisky and Switzer march down the field and win the game.

But I wanted to claim it was the offense - that the offense, which was the strength of the team, should have closed that game out. So the blame should be on that side of the ball.

Come on.

That game was lost by the defense. Plain and simple. Just like Saturday’s game at Wake Forest was lost by the offense. There were opportunities to win the game late, of course; M.J. Devonshire’s interception seemed to do just that, save for the litany of mistakes that almost immediately followed it. But all of those unfortunate events in the final 90 seconds (less, really) should not overshadow the bigger issue. The real issue.

The offense.

The offense went 10 straight possessions without a touchdown. The offense never put pressure on Wake’s third-string quarterback, Santino Marucci. The offense never created any kind of cushion to protect against some offensive success from the opponent.

The offense blew this one, and spending too much time hovering over the defense’s play at the end is ignoring the big problem.

It’s kind of like when a basketball team misses late free throws and loses a game. Yes, they could have won the game if they made those free throws, but more often than not, that wasn’t the reason they lost. More often than not, the reasons for a loss - the biggest reasons a team lost and the biggest reasons for concern - are spread throughout the game. They’re the trends of a full game that speak to bigger issues for the team.

So yes, Pitt could have won the Wake Forest game if not for the Donovan McMillon penalties or the Blake Zubovic hold or the controversial slide or the Caleb Junko punt. It could have won that game if it didn’t let Wake’s third-string quarterback lead two fourth-quarter touchdown drives. It could have won with one more stop, one more solid coverage rep, one more finished tackle.

But those are the trees, and they distract you from the real reason Pitt lost.

It’s the offense going 10 drives with only a field goal to show for them. That’s the forest.

The most concerning trend
Offense was the problem against Wake Forest, and offense has been the problem this season; that’s not exactly breaking news.

Honestly, that’s not exactly a new trend either. In fact, if you look over the course of Pat Narduzzi‘s eight previous seasons, you’ll find that far more often than not, offense has been the problem.

Really, it’s almost remarkable how often offense has been a problem. When I look back over Narduzzi’s eight seasons, there’s only one I could point to as a season where defense was the team’s chief liability, only one season where the defense cost the team more games than the offense. That was 2016; that year the offense covered for the defense, and on more than one occasion the defense cost the team a potential win. Virginia Tech, North Carolina even Oklahoma State all could’ve been and possibly should have been wins if not for the defense.

But outside of that, there aren’t many other seasons where the team had a clear liability and it wasn’t the offense. In 2019 the offense was a liability, costing the team at least two wins against Miami and Boston College. That was the difference between an eight-win season and a 10-win season (it was also the difference between playing in Detroit for a bowl game and some far some more desirable location).

Certainly 2022 saw the offense do more damage than good. You can look at the losses to Georgia Tech and Louisville and place those squarely on the performance of the offense. Those games were kind of like the Wake Forest loss: even though the defense gave up plays in those games, the offense was far below the line of what needs to be done in order to win football games at the college football level.

And so far this year, the offense has been the biggest problem. Offense cost this team the West Virginia game, the Virginia Tech game and the Wake Forest game, and to me that’s a pretty indisputable turn from what should have been a 5-2 record to the 2-5 record Pitt currently has.

Look, the defense gave up some rushing yards to West Virginia and certainly didn’t do a very good job stopping Virginia Tech’s rushing attack. And there’s no excusing the end-of-game performance from Santino Marucci.

But when he comes down to it, West Virginia scored 17 points Cincinnati scored three touchdowns. Virginia Tech probably would’ve scored fewer points if Pitt’s offense could have stayed on the field a little longer (Virginia Tech held a time of possession advantage of 15-plus minutes).

And the Wake Forest game – three points of the course of 10 possessions? That’s just not going to cut it, and the poor offensive performance put the defense in harm’s way and ultimately led to the loss, just like it did against Louisville and Georgia Tech in 2022, just like it did against Boston College and Miami in 2019 and just like it did in at least two of the final three losses in 2018.

Just like it has done countless times over the course of Pat Narduzzi‘s eight seasons - and now nine.

Whether this all reflects on Narduzzi‘s interest in offense; whether it reflects on the quality of his hires for offensive coordinator; whether it reflects on the personnel and the players that have been recruited on offense (because it’s hard to deny that the recruiting is been better on defense than it has been on offense) - all of that is up for debate. But the end result has been undeniable:

Despite having some outstanding individual players, offense has been the weak link more often than not in Narduzzi’s time at Pitt.

I come back to this question:

Of the last eight seasons, how many can you point to and say, ‘The offense was the strength of the team?’

2016, for sure. 2021, too. Beyond that…

Something has to be fixed there.

Still encouraged on the other side
It’s tough to say when you’re coming off a game where the third-string quarterback beat you with a couple of late touchdown passes and a pretty impressive fourth-quarter performance, but I have to be honest here:

I don’t hate what Pitt’s defense is done so far this season. They haven’t played great. They’ve had problems stopping the run, which is a big concern for a defensive structure that is built to do just that. But I think we all knew there was going to be a period of adjustment this season, and while you’d like to think that every game is going to be a step forward, that every game is going to show improvement and that by a certain point in the season everything would be perfect, the reality is, development is far more nebulous than that and improvement happens in far less of a structured format than that.

Some players develop at a different pace. Some players are thrust into action at different times. Some players are getting more playing time right from the start of the season, while some see their most playing time in game seven, as was the case on Saturday when three injuries led to Jordan Bass making his first career start and playing a career-high snaps.

Now, did it go well for Bass in his first career start? No. There were plenty of issues and plenty of mistakes and plenty of areas where he clearly wasn’t as prepared as he needed to be, but that’s going to happen when you have young players seeing significant playing time, and I think the combination of youth and overall performance has me relatively encouraged about this defense.

Right now, Pitt has a lot of young players, particularly in the middle of the defense, getting playing time - significant playing time, meaningful playing time - for the first time in their careers, and while I don’t think the Pitt coaches wanted to burn the redshirts of all three freshman linebackers, that’s exactly what has happened. And when you’re in a situation like that, you take your lumps with those freshmen when you’re forced to and they end up being better for it on the other side.

There will be points this season where young linebackers like Bass, Braylan Lovelace, Rasheem Biles and Kyle Louis - I’m including Louis because he’s a redshirt freshman this year who really didn’t see much playing time or even much practice time last season due to injury - those four guys will make mistakes and they’ll make big plays. Biles has already blocked two punts and Lovelace got into the end zone on a scoop-and-score, and those moments will come for Bass and Louis as well, assuming all those guys are healthy and playing. They’re all talented players who fit well in this defense, but you’re going to have the mistakes as well. You’re going to have the issues with missed assignments and over-pursuit and not trusting their roles and not trusting the scheme and losing discipline and all of those things coaches talk about that young players are inclined to do.

But the best way to work out those issues is for the young players to get on the field and play so they can learn those lessons on the field, and by the end of this season those guys are going to be far more ready to roll than they were at the beginning of the season.

On top of that, the defense has played fairly well. They gave up one touchdown through three quarters against Wake Forest - a defensive performance that would’ve stood up with just a little bit of offense supporting them on the other side. They also shut out Louisville in the second half, they held West Virginia to 17 points and they made considerable improvement and shut down Cincinnati in the second half.

Virginia Tech was a problem for a variety of reasons, and North Carolina is probably always going to do what it did against this defense, particularly when they have a player like Drake Maye at quarterback. But I think this defense has played well enough to win in most of its games, and they’ve been doing so with a lot of younger players, which brings its own upside of experience and learning on the job.

You’d always rather have the experienced players out there, but sometimes you can’t. Sometimes you have to take those lumps. Pitt’s been taking the lumps so far, and I think they’re coming out better because of It .

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

What’s up with the penalties?
It’s one thing to be bad. It’s another thing altogether to be undisciplined.

As one of the most penalized teams in the country, Pitt is certainly in the latter category.

Only three FBS teams - Colorado State, Colorado and New Mexico - are averaging more penalties per game than Pitt right now. The Panthers have been called for 62 penalties in seven games, an average of 8.86 penalties per game that has resulted in 71 penalty yards per game.

That’s 71 free yards Pitt has given its opponents every game. Pitt, whose offense has struggled to get to 300 yards in most games this season, has willingly handed its opponents an average of 71 yards.

That’s bad, and it’s even worse when you look at the individual games. West Virginia’s offense ranks No. 68 nationally in yards per game, so Pitt gave the Mountaineers an extra 65, just to get them going.

Virginia Tech’s offense is No. 88 nationally, so the Panthers helped them out with an extra 68 yards.

North Carolina and Louisville are top-20 offenses, so they definitely didn’t need the 84 and 87 yards Pitt gave them, respectively. But Wake Forest is outside the top 80 nationally in total offense, and Pitt gave the Deacons an extra 101 yards.

The Panthers have been called for seven or more penalties in six of seven games this season; they’ve topped eight penalties in five games and they’ve been called or nine or more four times.

That’s not an anomaly, and it’s not the ACC refs being out to get you. And while Pat Narduzzi tried to rationalize away at least some of those 13 penalties from Saturday’s loss, there’s only so far that can get you.

If you come out of a game having been called for five or six penalties, and two of them are intentional delay of game calls where you wanted some additional space to punt, okay. That’s logical.

But if you come out of a game with 13 penalties, well, I’m sorry, but saying that Pitt didn’t intend to run a play on that snap anyway (that was Narduzzi’s claim about one of the false starts) - that doesn’t negate the problem.

And the problem is that Pitt is getting called for a lot of penalties.

More to the point, Pitt is committing a lot of penalties.

Call them ticky-tacky or touch fouls or hypersensitive officials driven by a conference-instilled dislike and distrust of those boys from the north. Call it whatever you want. Rationalize it however you want.

The numbers don’t lie. Not at this volume:

62 enforced penalties. 502 penalty yards.

62 isn’t unlucky. It’s undisciplined. And rationalizing it away, at least publicly, doesn’t feel like accountability. It feels like excuse-making.

Perhaps the tone is different behind closed doors. I could see that - a coach not wanting to throw his players under the bus. But if the rationalizations and the excuses are also being offered inside the walls of Pitt’s South Side facility, then there’s no reason to believe the penalties won’t continue everywhere else Pitt plays football.

What do we make of Pat Narduzzi’s tenure?
We always do this - like, we do this almost every week, it seems - but we really do it after losses. And when the team starts a season 2-5, well, we’re going to do it a lot.

Let’s put some perspective on Pat Narduzzi’s tenure at Pitt.

So Pat Narduzzi’s first eight seasons looked like this:

- Eight or more wins five times (2015, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2022)

- Two division titles (2018, 2021)

- One conference title (2022)

Let’s start there.

I’ve said for a long time that I think eight-win seasons should be the floor for Pitt. For Narduzzi, that has largely been the case. And of the three seasons when he didn’t win eight, one was a division championship season and the other was a pandemic-shortened season.

I don’t intend to rationalize or pretend that those seasons were something they weren’t. Pitt still lost seven games in 2018 and five in 2020; eight wins would have been in reach with a 12-game season and a bowl in the latter year, but that’s hypothetical.

Still, those are relevant caveats to two of the seasons when Narduzzi didn’t win eight games.

And it’s relevant that, under Narduzzi, Pitt was the first Coastal program to win the division twice after the 2013 expansion.

It’s also relevant that, in the course of the ACC since Narduzzi arrived in 2015, there’s Clemson and then there’s Pitt - in terms of conference wins, division titles and conference titles.

That’s the truth.

Pitt has been the second-most successful program in the ACC behind Clemson since Narduzzi arrived.

I don’t think we should lose sight of that.

Have there been rough patches along the way? Certainly. More than I care to list here. And more than I need to list here, because you can rattle them off just as easily as I can. We’ve all developed a shorthand for the bad ones; it’s like a code for Pitt followers you can use to identify yourself (51-6 and Western Michigan roll off the tongue just as easily as 13-9 does).

But there’s a reality in college football, a sport whose parity falls behind just about every other major sports league in America; a sport where the separation between the top and the rest is starker than any other sports league in America; a sport where the occasional interloper may find its way up to the big table, only to be struck down with great vengeance and furious anger.

If you’re not in the top tier of college football, if you’re not one of those 10 or 12 programs, then your reality is one of cycles. Cycles up and cycles down.

The successful programs in that tier are able to strike when the cycle goes up and minimize the depths of the cycle going down.

Pat Narduzzi has largely done that. Sure, a College Football Playoff run in 2021, like what Michigan State had in 2015 or Washington had in 2016 or TCU had last year, that would have been fun. And if the Panthers had made such a run, they likely would have been dealt with like the Spartans, Huskies and Horned Frogs were dealt with.

That’s besides the point. The point is that Narduzzi had an opportunity to strike when the cycle went up, and he did so with an ACC championship. And when the cycle went down, he scored an all-time win with a promising freshman quarterback or he rallied the troops for an inspiring run of games after hitting rock bottom.

As we sit here seven games in, 2023 is a cycle-down that doesn’t look like it will be minimized. We’ve all watched enough Pitt football to know that you can never really count the Panthers out - they have this weird knack for the unexpected, both good and bad - but I think we can all tell that this one is going to sting and it’s definitely going to leave a mark. It’s a bad year. Everybody has them.

The question is how Pitt bounces back. How Pitt moves forward. How Pitt turns 2023’s struggles into something more positive in 2024.

The Panthers have bounced back before under Narduzzi. They went 5-7 in 2017 and won the Coastal in 2018. They went 6-5 in 2020 and won the ACC in 2021. Sure, Kenny Pickett is a common denominator there, but Pitt should have a returning starter at quarterback for next season, so we’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I think if we look at the last eight years, it’s hard to miss the fact that Pitt’s football program is as strong as it has been in a long, long time.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt will keep it close
I can’t in good conscience predict a win tomorrow in South Bend, but I’ll go one step shy of that and call for a close game.

That’s about as far as I can get.

I know the oddsmakers have Notre Dame favored by three scores or so. And I think that makes sense: the Irish have a very talented team and Pitt just lost in brutal fashion against a not-very-talented team. Add in the totality of the season, and yeah, it makes sense to install the Panthers as a hefty underdog.

But as you’ve no doubt read and been reminded this week, weird things happen when Pitt goes to South Bend. There was the Tyler Palko game, of course. Then the four-overtime game three years later. And the three-overtime game four years after that. And a valiant effort six years later in a five-point loss.

Even the 2010 game, which I declined to include in that list, was a comedy of errors for Pitt that still went down as a six-point defeat.

The Panthers haven’t lost a game in South Bend by more than one score since 2001. So even though they are 2-5 in the seven games they’ve played there this century, they’ve kept them all close, which is an odd trend but a trend nonetheless.

That last game on the road against Notre Dame is one that sticks out to me. It was 2018, when Pitt started the season 2-4 and felt like the bottom was falling out after disgusting-for-different-reasons losses at North Carolina and Central Florida. But the Panthers rallied to beat Syracuse at home and then went to South Bend, where they lost 19-14 in a game that probably stands as the single most encouraging loss I’ve seen from this team in the 18 years I’ve been covering them.

I’m not kidding. While there were mistakes and missed opportunities aplenty, I think everybody - fans, coaches, players - felt kind of good about Pitt as the Panthers pulled out of South Bend. A win would have been better, of course, but that loss wasn’t a bad one and it didn’t really derail the momentum from the Syracuse game a week earlier - as evidenced by the fact that Pitt went on a four-game winning streak to clinch the Coastal Division after Notre Dame.

I don’t see the same fate for this year’s Panthers. There’s no Coastal, for starters. And I don’t think they’ll use a close loss in South Bend as a springboard to a four-game winning streak.

But I do think Pitt can keep it close with Notre Dame. The Irish are good, but they have had some slumps, like their mistake-riddled loss to Ohio State, barely-get-by win over Duke and 13-point loss at Louisville.

They rallied for a big win over USC two weeks ago and they’ve had a week off since then, but they are beatable.

I can’t predict Pitt to win, but I can predict them to keep it close. I can predict the defense to play a solid game, I can predict the offense with Christian Veilleux to take a step forward, and I can predict something cleaner than what we saw in the loss at Wake Forest.

I think the recipe is there. We’ll see if Pitt brings the right ingredients to South Bend.