The 3-2-1 Column: Offensive optimism, August hoops and more

In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're thinking about optimism for Pitt's offense, the hoops team's trip to Spain and more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

The train keeps a rollin’
Uh oh.

Do you hear that? That rumbling in the distance, the floating air of a whistle? It’s the sound of an approaching train, and it’s getting closer and closer to the South Side.

It’s the train they call the City of New Offense, and it will put up 500 yards when the day is done.

Okay, I don’t know about 500 yards. Pitt only touched 500 once last year - 510 in the regular-season finale at Miami - and was held under 400 in half of the other games, so half-a-thousand is a high bar to reach. Or at least it was for last year’s offense.

I don’t know if this year’s offense will make 500 yards a regular occurrence, but boy howdy is the volume increasing on the offense taking a step forward.

Look, I think there are three reasons Pitt’s offense can, possibly should and maybe will be pretty good in 2023.

The first one is the offensive line, and that’s a big one. The line basically has one starter to replace; that was left guard Marcus Minor. Sure, Owen Drexel, Gabe Houy and Carter Warren are also gone, but Drexel and Houy started five games each and Warren started just four, and all three were never on the field at the same time. Not once.

Meanwhile, guys like Matt Goncalves, Branson Taylor and Blake Zubovic all got a ton of playing time, which should bode well for their readiness entering this season.

The next thing that should be a strength for this year’s offense is the familiarity. This has been talked about a lot, but I don’t think that makes it any less significant. All of the key players Pitt will be counting on in 2023 have experience with this offensive system. All of them, from the linemen to the receivers to the tight ends and running backs and quarterbacks. They’ve all been deeply enmeshed in this system for at least one year, with some having worked in it for 18 months or even multiple years.

Of course, “multiple years” really just applies to one guy, and he just so happens to play the most important position on the field. I don’t think it’s unimportant that this will be Phil Jurkovec’s third year working in Frank Cignetti’s system. I really don’t. I think that kind of familiarity is invaluable, and while I know it will get brought up sardonically after his first interception - “Lot of good all that familiarity did, huh?” - I’m still willing to say that it’s a big net positive to have that level of knowledge and comfort with the offense.

And finally, I simply think there are good players on this offense. I really do. Maybe not a ton of depth at some positions, but I think Pitt’s got a chance to have some studs at a few spots. I already mentioned the offensive line; that’s a big one. And if you have consumed pretty much any content I’ve put out this month, you know I’m driving the Bub Means Hype Train; I think he’s really set up for a big year.

I think Konata Mumpfield will take a step forward from last season, too, and I think Gavin Bartholomew is in line for his best year yet. And while the running backs may not have the talent of Israel Abanikanda, I think they’re good enough - and the line is good enough and the scheme is good enough - that they’ll be productive.

We’ll judge the quarterback when we see him, but there’s no doubting that Jurkovec is a talented player. That much has been certain since he was a standout at Pine Richland. There are other questions with Jurkovec, to be sure, but I don’t think talent is one of them.

So…I don’t know. It seems like there’s a real chance of this offense having some success. Or maybe it’s just the middle of training camp talking.

La juventud en Espana
All of our attention has been in the South Side, of course, but for a few days over the last week or two, we’ve shifted to a different geographical area.

Like, Spain.

That’s where the Pitt hoops team spent 10 days, taking in the sights and sounds of Espana in a foreign tour that saw the Panthers play two games and spend a whole lot of time together. I think there’s real value in the team-building experience, but we didn’t get to see that.

We did get to see some basketball.

Well, we saw some stats and highlights from the first game. And then we came across a full video of the second game, and that gave us a whole lot of fodder for discussion.

I don’t know if the young guards were the first thing to draw our attention, but by the end of the two-game trip, they definitely had it. Chiefly, I’m talking about Carlton Carrington, whose nickname “Bub” is quickly being universally adopted by the Pitt fan base.

Bub Carrington was probably the biggest revelation of the Spain trip. Originally thought to be a two-guard with fellow freshman Jaland Lowe projected as the point guard, Carrington showed that not only could he play any of the back court spots, but he is actually quite good at playing the point.

Good enough, in fact, that he started the first game of the trip at point guard. He would drift between the two spots over the course of the two games, but there was plenty of evidence to indicate that he’s more than capable of handling the ball.

Ditto for Lowe, who mostly played point guard but is enough of a playmaker that he could play either spot in the back court, too.

And then there’s Dior Johnson, the prodigal son who never really left but nonetheless returned all the same this offseason. Expectations have been sky-high since he signed with Pitt, even if those expectations almost always came with the caveat of “If he actually plays here,” and the trip to Spain provided Pitt fans - and coaches - a chance to see the former top prospect in real competitive action.

I don’t think he disappointed. He didn’t take over the game and score 30 points, but he was clearly comfortable working with his teammates in the half court and, in what will be a recurring theme, getting out and running.

It was a strong debut for Pitt’s young guards, even if it happened 4,000 miles away. The point of the trip was to build bonds for the team and get some extra practice time; it just so happened that the young guards looked pretty darn good in the-process.

Keeping in mind that we’re talking about August basketball with more than three months until the games actually start, I think it was a pretty successful trip - especially since the Panthers basically flew home with three freshman point guards.

Los mayores en Espana
It wasn’t just the young guys who put on a show in Spain, though.

When Pitt released selected stats from the box scores in the two overseas games, the official decision was to announce the top four scorers from each game. Three players made the cut in both games:

Blake Hinson, Zack Austin and Ishmael Leggett.

Hinson had the biggest stat line, of course, popping for 51 total points and grabbing 12 rebounds on top of the scoring. Austin scored 18 and 11 to average 14.5 on the trip, and he had 12 rebounds, too. Leggett scored 27 total points, and Pitt announced that he also had five rebounds, three assists and three blocks in the second game.

Quite frankly, that’s exactly the kind of high-level production you’d hope to get from the elder statesmen on the team, and Hinson, Austin and Leggett produced.

Look, Blake is Blake. I think we all know what Pitt is going to get on a regular basis from him, and I think he’s going to deliver on most nights. He looks like he’s in better shape, but even if he’s not quite keeping up with the young guards running the court, he doesn’t need to keep up with them:

He just needs to trail them in transition so they can kick the ball back to him for a three, which he did to score Pitt’s first points in the second game.

Austin and Leggett were/are the bigger question marks. They were productive players at High Point and Rhode Island, respectively, but you never know how that will translate to the high-major level.

A trip to Spain in August isn’t exactly a trip to Durham in January, but it was a great platform for showcasing exactly what those two will bring to Pitt this season.

To me, Austin confirmed his role as possibly the most interesting man on the team this season: big, capable of defending 1-4, ultra-athletic and explosive. Pitt hasn’t had a player like him in quite some time; the “tall Nike Sibande” description still stands as probably the most accurate one I’ve heard.

Meanwhile, Leggett showed a whole lot of potential in Spain. I still think he needs to shed the mentality he had at Rhode Island where he needed to do everything; he’s got more help around him now and doesn’t need to shoulder the entire load. But his skills are there, for sure. The shooting seems to have translated, and he fit in well with the offense.

Really, the only thing we didn’t get a clear sense of was the triplets: Guillermo and Jorge Diaz Graham and Federiko Federiko. Federiko didn’t make the trip because he’s playing with the Finnish national team in the FIBA World Cup, and Jorge made the trip but didn’t play due to injury. Papa Kante was there, too, but he only played in the first game, sitting out the second one with an injury of his own.

So we’ll see what comes in the front court, but with encouraging performances from the freshmen and veterans, it’s not hard to like what Pitt is putting together for the upcoming season (which is still three months away).

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Is Pitt turning a corner at linebacker?
As we’ve been working through our weekly position previews this summer, each day has had a different focus.

We start the week with five big questions. Then we look at the depth chart and personnel moves. Eventually we get to one bold prediction. But in between, we have one of the more fun articles to put together:

We rank the top five players of the Pat Narduzzi era at each position.

I enjoy writing those pieces. It’s fun to jog the memory and think back over the last eight years, reminiscing about some of the players who have come through the program since 2015 and recalling their impact (or lack thereof).

Last week, I performed that exercise with the linebackers. Pitt has had 33 scholarship linebackers on the roster from 2015-22, so surely finding a top five wouldn’t be tough, right?

Eh, it was tougher than I expected. As it turns out, linebacker hasn’t exactly been a strength of Pitt’s defense under Narduzzi. In fact, one could go so far as to call it a weak link. Only one Pitt linebacker has been drafted in the last eight years, and that was SirVocea Dennis this year. Dennis was also the only Pitt linebacker to make the ACC coaches’ all-conference first or second team in the last eight years (he was second-team in 2021 and first-team last season).

So while the defensive line and the defensive backs have excelled in Narduzzi’s system, the linebackers have not.

When it came time to rank the top five linebackers of the Narduzzi era, then, the task was more difficult than I expected. I came up with five - Seun Idowu made the list, and if you’re surprised at that, you should check out how productive he was (spoiler alert: he was more productive than you remember) - but it wasn’t easy.

Next summer, I think it will get a little easier, and I think that will keep happening for the next few years, because I think the tide is turning at linebacker.

Or the arrow is pointing up, as I said on an episode of the Morning Pitt this week.

Or Pitt is turning the corner, as I said in the headline of this section of the column.

However you want to phrase it, the Panthers are getting better at linebacker, and I think the improvement starts this year.

Really, it started last year with Dennis as a senior and Bangally Kamara and Shayne Simon and Tylar Wiltz and Solomon DeShields playing around him. This year, even though Dennis and Wiltz are gone, I think the group will take another step forward.

Assuming the current expected starting lineup of Kamara, Simon and DeShields holds, it figures to be the most athletic group of linebackers Pitt has rolled with since Narduzzi arrived, and the timeline for that particular superlative probably dates back further than 2015.

To me, Kamara and DeShields represent the change in philosophy (or maybe just execution) for Narduzzi and his staff. Both guys were do-everything athletes in high school, with Kamara starring just as much on offense and special teams as he did on defense and DeShields making plays at safety and receiver.

Now they’ve both bulked up - Kamara told us Wednesday he is pushing 230 pounds, and DeShields doesn’t look like he’s far behind - but they’ve kept the athleticism, speed and explosiveness. They’ll be flanking Simon this season as the transfer from Notre Dame moves from Money linebacker to the middle, but that won’t be completely new for Simon since he played middle linebacker in the Sun Bowl.

Behind those three, Pitt’s got seasoned veteran Brandon George (who is sneakily more athletic than he gets credit for), redshirt freshman Kyle Louis (another do-everything athlete in high school) and three freshmen who have opened a lot of eyes in training camp.

The depth is young, but it’s athletic and, to hear the coaches tell it, very exciting.

I think the linebackers will take a big step forward this season, and with the positive reviews of the freshmen, 2023 should be the start of a trend of impact play in the middle of the defense.

Is it good offense or bad defense?
As we talked a lot this week about the success of the offense and the optimism rising from that success, there was inevitably an equal and opposite reaction in the form of this question:

If the offense is playing well, does that mean the defense is struggling?

Well…maybe.

Look, this is the classic conundrum of camp: if one side of the ball does well, the other side must have given up some plays. There’s only one winner, and if there’s a winner then there must also be a loser.

At last Saturday’s scrimmage, the offense was the winner and the defense was the loser.

We don't want to overreact to one scrimmage that we didn’t actually watch, but Pitt entered training camp with a fair amount of questions on the defense, so when those concerns are coupled with positive plays from the offense, it’s not hard to start drawing some conclusions.

We know the safeties are green. That’s part of the story with the defense this season, and the only cure for inexperience is time. Javon McIntyre and P.J. O’Brien and Stephon Hall and Donovan McMillon will get better - I’m sure of that; they’re good athletes and skilled players - but they need time to get comfortable in the scheme.

We’ve seen what can happen when inexperienced safeties play in this defense, and it can be ugly at times (exacerbated by the fact that when safeties make a mistake, the result is usually measured in points rather than yards).

That’s been a concern we’ve discussed throughout the offseason, and it will probably be one that we monitor heading into the season as well. So the possibility exists that some of the plays the offense has been making have come at the expense of the young safeties.

I’m going to be more positive about it, though. I’m going to say that the hype around Bub Means has come from his consistency and impressive playmaking; sometimes that may have been against the safeties, but he’s also certainly going against the corners, too, and I don’t think anyone is too worried about Marquis Williams, M.J. Devonshire or A.J. Woods. Those guys are reliable, and if Means is making plays against them, then I’m calling it a positive for Means, Phil Jurkovec and the offense.

And let’s be honest: while you would prefer to have Pitt excel in camp in all three phases, the reality is, if you had to pick one side of the ball to play the best right now, it would be the offense, right?

That’s the unit that was most directly responsible for the ACC championship in 2021, and it was the unit that was most directly responsible for the team going 8-4 last year instead of 10-2.

The offense is where Pitt needs the most improvement. The offense is where Pitt has the biggest question marks. And it’s the offense that feels like it will be the difference between 10-2 and 8-4 (or worse) again this season.

You don’t want to have to start worrying about the defense, but if the offense really is making strides, that’s a net positive.

Plus, it’s training camp, and you kind of get to choose your own adventure right now. In the last 3-2-1 Column I wrote, I talked about how camp is great because everybody is a champion. And that’s still kind of the case, so when you hear that the offense is making plays or that there’s an expectation of that unit being better in 2023 than it was in 2022, I say embrace it. Buy in on the offense and trust the coaches on the defense.

We’ll all find out soon enough who’s good and who’s not.

ONE PREDICTION

The running back production will be more spread out this year
We’re not really talking about Pitt’s running backs too much this camp, it seems.

We talk a lot about Phil Jurkovec, of course (although we could probably stand to talk about his backups more). And we - I - talk a whole lot about Bub Means (and the freshman receivers have gotten a ton of press).

We’ve even talked about Gavin Bartholomew a good deal.

The running backs, though…they’re just kind of there.

Part of that, I think, is because there’s an inherent trust in that group. They all seem to be solid players with decent upside, and they play in an offensive system that is going to give them opportunities to excel. They may not have a player like Israel Abanikanda, but the players they’ve got are good enough to produce.

So we just kind of assume that and move on to worrying about the quarterbacks or imagining the ceiling for guys like Means.

But I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how the running back group performs. We all know that Abanikanda had a huge season last year: 1,431 yards and 20 touchdowns while averaging 6.0 yards per carry and 130.1 yards per game over 11 games.

In total, the running backs produced 2,437 yards and 30 touchdowns and averaged 5.3 yards per carry. That’s a really nice stat line for the group.

Can this year’s group get close to that?

Andre Powell thinks so, and I kind of do, too. It will just probably be a bit more spread out than it was last season.

In 2022, Abanikanda took 52.4% of the total running back attempts, and that’s with him missing two games. In the games he played, he accounted for 63.2% of the running back carries.

I don’t think Hammond will command a 63% share of the rushing attempts. My guess is he’ll end up somewhere in the 50’s in that regard.

To fill in the rest of the carries, then, I’m looking at a few guys. C’Bo Flemister is my pick as a player who isn’t really getting any press but will make a pretty solid impact; I could see him surpassing Hammond’s stat line from 2022 (109 carries, 460 yards, 5 touchdowns), and I think he showed some of his potential at the end of the regular season.

Assuming everybody stays healthy - which is probably not a safe assumption, given the hazards of that position - I think Hammond could top 1,000 yards and Flemister could add 600 or more. And those numbers are probably on the low end, since I think this running back room should still end up north of 2,000 rushing yards.

That would mean about 400 yards or so from the rest of the backs - guys like Daniel Carter and Derrick Davis, primarily. Last year, the third and fourth rushers on the team - Vincent Davis and Flemister, respectively - combined for 495; I don’t know if I see Carter and Davis getting quite that close to 500, assuming Hammond and Flemister stay healthy. But I could comfortably pencil them (and possibly a freshman or two) in for 350 or so.
Really, the question of whether or not Pitt’s running back production in 2023 gets close to that of 2022 will come down to Flemister. I think Hammond will get to 1,000 yards; if Flemister gets 700 yards or more, then Pitt’s backs should be able to clear 2,000 yards again. If he’s held to 500 or 600, then I don’t think they’ll get there.

So my prediction here is that we’ll see a more even divide between Hammond and Flemister this year than we saw between Abanikanda and Hammond last year. Either way, I think it will be really interesting to see how the running backs are deployed this season.