MORE HEADLINES - Recruiting preview: Which top prospects are coming to the game? | Video: Narduzzi's final talk before Penn State | Narduzzi on getting ready for Saturday, QBs, RPOs and more | Defense intends to 'keep getting better' in Week Two | No bulletin board material from Pitt players heading into Penn State | Film review: The offense against Albany | Film review: The defense against Albany

In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re talking about Pitt’s game this weekend against whoever it is that the Panthers are playing.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

The big game
“You’re a part of something that’s way bigger than you, that came way before you.”

That’s what Damar Hamlin said last Saturday, and the junior safety wasn’t talking about playing Albany.

He was, of course, talking about this week’s game. You might have heard of the opponent and you might have heard that Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi is rather unabashedly talking this one up. He’s making it a big deal. And you know what? I think that’s exactly what Narduzzi should do: he should build this game up as much as he can, for the players, for the coaches and for the fans.

Build it up to be the Super Bowl. Do it. I’ve seen some concern that if you put too much on this game, if you build it up too much, then you risk a potential letdown the next week.

But that hasn’t happened in the last three seasons. We haven’t seen this team experience a letdown or a hangover yet, so I’m not worried about that. I’m not worried that they’ll get so amped up for Penn State that they’ll be flat against Georgia Tech. Sure, Pitt is 0-2 in games the week after playing Penn State, but I don’t think they came out flat at Oklahoma State two years ago, and there was no letdown against Oklahoma State last season; Mason Rudolph simply crushed them.

So I’m not worried about a letdown or an emotional hangover. That hasn’t happened yet and I don’t see any reason to believe it will start happening now. I actually think one of Pat Narduzzi’s strengths has been the emotions of his team; I don’t think they’ve overlooked any opponents in the last three seasons and I don’t think they’ve suffered from hangovers.

When they’ve gotten beat, they’ve gotten beat by a team that played better, and I can’t think of many opponents among Pitt’s 17 losses over the last three seasons that came against a lesser opponent.

So I say go for it. Build this thing up as big as you can. Get the players going on full-bore energy. Get them fired up so much that you start to worry that they’ll play out of their minds, then pull them back just a little bit and set them loose.

Play the respect card. Play for bragging rights. Play to prove that You are better than Them. Penn State doesn’t want to treat it that way, and that’s even better: use that, too.

“It’s just more personal because this is home and everyone loves that game here. “

That’s what Damar Hamlin said. He’s a Pittsburgh kid and he gets it. I think his teammates and his coaches do, too.

But it’s not the biggest
Look, I know the biggest game is always the one right in front of you, and this week is no different.

I’m not talking in some coaching cliché. I’m not saying fans can’t look ahead, because it honestly doesn’t matter if fans look ahead or look back or look up or look down. That only matters with the players; they need to stay focused on the next game and not look ahead.

For fans, it’s pretty tough to look past this game because, well, it’s Penn State. Like I said: it’s a big game. A huge game. One they will talk about for a long time - good or bad.

But ultimately, Pitt’s eyes are on a prize that won’t be affected one iota by what happens at Heinz Field on Saturday (I mean, injuries and that kind of thing notwithstanding).

Pitt wants to compete for the Coastal Division title and a spot in the ACC Championship Game. That’s the big prize. That’s the big goal. And beating Penn State or losing to Penn State isn’t going to change the likelihood of Pitt getting to the title game in Charlotte. It can create momentum or confidence or something like that, but Pitt’s ACC record on Sunday is the same as it will be on Friday: 0-0.

So while we’re all - myself included - certain to make much more out of this game than it merits, regardless of whether it’s a win or a loss, the fact remains that Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Syracuse, Duke, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and Miami mean more than Central Florida, Notre Dame and, yes, Penn State.

Of course, there’s no either-or in reality; those hypotheticals of ‘Would you rather beat Penn State and go 4-4 in the ACC or lose to Penn State and go 6-1?’ don’t have any real-world relevance beyond perhaps providing insight into the mindset of the person answering that question.

But the most important thing Pitt can do right now as a program is win a bunch of games and position itself at or near the top of the Coastal Division. Pitt needs to create the perception that it is not a middle-of-the-pack team in the ACC, that it is a competitive member of the league and one who will consistently be in the mix for a run to the conference title game.

The Penn State game is going to create some perceptions one way or another, especially locally, but the Big Goal is still going to be hanging out there regardless of what happens on Saturday.

The deciding factor
It’s the epitome of basic football analysis to say that a game will hinge on the quarterbacks, because let’s face it: all games hinge on the quarterbacks. Look at the outcomes of just about any game, and you’re likely to find that the quarterback who played better was on the winning side.

So I am hesitant to even write this section, but I just can’t shake the thought:

This one will come down to Trace McSorley and Kenny Pickett.

Pat Narduzzi was asked on Thursday about the similarities between McSorley and Pickett, and while he acknowledged that they were similar in terms of physical skills, he also pointed out that McSorley has a significant advantage in experience.

McSorley has played in a lot of games. He has played in a lot of big games. And he has made a lot of big plays. He’s very good, as most Pitt fans would concede.

Pickett has a chance to be very good, too. But he has played in five games (really four or maybe only three and with just two starts). He’s still very green - a “puppy,” as Narduzzi called him - and some of that inexperience showed in the season opener against Albany.

Regardless, Pickett is going to need to be a key player for Pitt on Saturday night. There are weaknesses in Penn State’s defense, vulnerabilities that can be exposed by a solid rushing attack and a quarterback who knows how to expose them. If Pickett and the Pitt offense can take advantage of those weaknesses, then the Panthers can walk out of Heinz Field as winners on Saturday night.

That might be what it really boils down to: whether McSorley can play well enough to cover for Penn State’s defensive issues or whether Pickett can play well enough to take advantage of them.

Pitt’s defense will play a central role in that, of course. The Panthers will try to get to McSorley early and often, but they have to be smart about how they rush him, because the last thing Pitt wants to do is send extra pass-rushers and then have McSorley escape the pocket with six defenders behind the line of scrimmage. The right mix of aggressiveness and caution can cause problems for McSorley and maybe make it a little more difficult to take advantage of the favorable matchups he’s going to find against Pitt’s safeties.

It’s probably important to understand this, too: McSorley is going to make plays. He’s going to run for first downs. He’s going to hit some passes down the seams. He’s really good, and no matter the state of Pitt’s defense, it’s probably unrealistic to expect to shut him down completely. But what the Panthers can do is pressure him, try to force some rushed throws and then capitalize when he hangs one out there.

Pitt will give up some plays to Penn State’s offense, but if the Panthers can make a few plays of their own and Pickett can exploit the Nittany Lions’ defense while staying relatively clean himself, this one can go Pitt’s way.

TWO QUESTIONS

Who is for real?
There were a lot of positive signs out of the win over Albany. On both sides of the ball, there were units that played well and perhaps outperformed expectations.

That might have been one of the most encouraging signs. There were concerns about receivers, but that group as a whole had a pretty good day. There were concerns about the offensive line, but again, that group seemed to more or less control the line of scrimmage. And there is a lot of pressure on the defensive to create, well, pressure, and they came through with 14 sacks or hurries on 34 Albany drop-backs, which seems like a pretty good percentage.

But let’s be honest: no matter how many times we look at the stats or the film, no matter how impressed we were with Stefano Millin and Keyshon Camp and Taysir Mack, no matter how well things seemed to work for the most part…it was still just Albany. And with all due respect to those players, they’re not a Power Five conference team.

Penn State is.

And no matter how much they lost this offseason, they still return a very talented roster led by a very talented quarterback, and that’s a dangerous combination. So, with the first test passed rather smoothly, it’s time to get a much better feel for exactly who this team is and how they stack up against a pretty good Power Five team.

Quite simply, who is for real?

I think Quintin Wirginis is for real; I think he could have the kind of season that makes James Franklin wish that Bill O’Brien had recruited him out of Fox Chapel. I think Rashad Weaver is for real, too; I think he can have the kind of season that makes Franklin wish he had landed Weaver after Michigan dropped him late in the 2016 cycle.

I’m a little more curious about the receivers. I think Taysir Mack looked good and I think that Shocky Jacques-Louis is a weapon waiting to be unleashed. I was also really impressed with Rafael Araujo-Lopes, but I would like to see how Power Five cornerbacks would play him on those two touchdown catches.

This truly is one of those “legends are made” type of games, and those guys I listed plus a bunch more can show exactly what they’re made of on Saturday at Heinz Field. Do it against Penn State, do it in a heated rivalry, do it in front of 68,000 people - then you’re going to have a lot of people believing that you truly are for real.

Will there be any surprises?
If anything, the 2016 Pitt-Penn State game was defined by the unveiling of the jet sweep package, an out-of-nowhere display that caught the Nittany Lions off-guard and had as much to do with Pitt’s win as anything else that happened that day.

After a very vanilla performance against Villanova, Matt Canada shocked the world with a completely different offense that was explosive, dynamic and, most of all, very difficult to adjust to. Even Clemson had trouble adjusting to it, and Pitt had been using it for eight games by the time the Panthers went to Death Valley; in Week Two, without any kind of hint or indication that something new was coming, Penn State was totally lost against the sweeps and other intricacies of Pitt’s offense.

2017 wasn’t exactly a continuation of the theme, as Pitt seemed to have very little in the way of “new offense” for the trip to Beaver Stadium. There may have been some details and specifics that the coaches rolled out for that game, but aside from putting Avonte Maddox on offense for a snap, there weren’t any big, overt surprises.

So what should we expect this year?

My guess is that it won’t be anything like 2016, at least in terms of getting wholesale changes from what we saw Pitt run in the opener. There will be different plays and possibly some different formations and personnel groupings on defense, but I don’t expect anything as drastic as 2016.

Instead, I think the biggest difference will be the offense honing in on its key playmakers. Against Albany, Pitt used eight receivers; seven of them played at least 12 snaps and six caught at least one pass. I would expect that number to get pared down a bit, with the emphasis going on the guys who can really make something happen.

Given the fact that there are a lot of new faces at that position - four of the eight receivers who got on the field Saturday have played in a game for Pitt before - there’s some uncertainty about how they will all be used. But I think that Taysir Mack will play more than 16 snaps and Shocky Jacques-Louis will see more than 24 this Saturday against Penn State. (Will Gragg, too; I think he’ll top the eight snaps he played against Albany.)

I think Mack and Jacques-Louis will be significant factors in the passing game this season, and Saturday should be their primetime debuts. Mack showed what he can do on his 26-yard catch against Albany, and he has been widely hailed as the best receiver on the team since he arrived in January.

Likewise, Jacques-Louis has been turning heads since his arrival in January, too. And the word coming out of training camp was that the freshman from Florida had all the makings of a star receiver - maybe even a superstar. If ever there was a game for a potential star to break out, Penn State in primetime at Heinz Field seems like as good an option as any.

So while I don’t expect any big surprises that will have the impact that Canada’s sweeps did, I think Pitt can open things up a bit by focusing on some individual players (they probably won’t forget guys like Maurice Ffrench and Rafael Araujo-Lopes either; they were pretty good in the opener).

ONE PREDICTION

Predicting the game, because we have to
A year ago in this space, I predicted that Pitt would beat Penn State in 2018 because Trace McSorley would be among the many personnel losses suffered by the Nittany Lions. That’s the kind of accurate, relevant analysis you get in this column, lemme tell you.

But seriously, how can I not call the game in this part of the column when it’s Penn State week? And if I’m going to make a prediction on the game, how can I not predict a win, right? I mean, really, am I going to end this week’s 3-2-1 Column, which is read by millions around the world, by saying that PSU is going win?

Of course not.

Does that mean I feel extraordinarily confident about Pitt’s chances? Well no, that’s not the case either. I really don’t know what to expect out of this game beyond an atmosphere that should be pretty outstanding (assuming everyone gets into the game on time).

I keep thinking about these two teams and looking at who they have and who they lost and whatever other factors I can consider, and I just can’t draw a firm conclusion. Week One definitely didn’t clear up anything for either squad - I think they’re both still trying to answer question No. 1 from the “Two Questions” section of this column - but Week Two is going to shed some light on who these teams really are.

So without knowing who they really are, it’s pretty tough to make a prediction. But I’ll make one anyway. Surprise was a big element in the win two years ago; I think there will be surprises this year, but rather than plays, I think the surprises will come in the form of players. I think a couple guys on both sides of the ball will be in line for breakout performances, and I think you’ll see a few playmaker emerge.

I also think the home crowd atmosphere plays into Pitt’s favor. Now, we’ve seen that atmosphere go away quite quickly if things go south, so it will be important for Pitt to get off to a strong start. But if the team can keep the fans engaged, I think the energy can be an asset for a home team that, in my view, has a good mix of experience (that knows how to handle the atmosphere) and youth (that will get fired up by it).

As far as it goes on the field, I think there are matchups Pitt can win. The Panthers will look to build on the success they had running the ball against Albany, and with a somewhat undersized Penn State defensive front, they should be able to get the run game going. And with the Nittany Loins having a potential weakness at linebacker, there should be opportunities for Kenny Pickett to find options in the middle of the field.

Of course, Pitt’s defense will have to contain Trace McSorley (I think we talked about this before). If the Panthers fail to do that, they’ll have to win a shootout, and while I think Pitt’s offense has a chance to be better than expected, I’m not exactly jumping at the opportunity to throw them into a shootout in Week Two.

Either way, I’ll go with the home team. I think the defense will give up some plays to McSorley - you’re not going to stop him completely - but also make a few plays of its own, and I think Pickett and the offense will be solid with the run and hit some occasional big plays with the pass, doing enough to guarantee at least a split of the last Pitt-Penn State series for a long time.