MORE HEADLINES - Pickett goes to the Steelers at pick No. 20 | PODCAST: Transfers, schedules and more | New 2024 QB target has connections to Pitt | Who are the top recruits in Western Pa. for the class of 2024? | Capel offers a forward in the 2022 recruiting class | Georgia CB has Pitt on his official visit list | To transfer WR Means, everything happened for a reason

In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're thinking about Kenny Pickett staying home, Pitt's receivers getting better and a lot more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Pickett is a Steeler
I never thought it would happen. I really didn’t.

I never thought the Steelers would draft Kenny Pickett, for a few reasons.

For starters, I didn’t think the Steelers would draft any quarterback in the first round, and I wasn’t entirely convinced that they should take a quarterback.

I also bought into the hype that, if the Steelers did take a quarterback, it just might be Liberty’s Malik Willis (although I should know better: nobody really knows what these teams are thinking).

Beyond that, I didn’t really think Pickett would still be available at pick No. 20. I thought Carolina or New Orleans or maybe Detroit or Seattle would take him, and the Steelers would never have to make that decision.

But they did have to make that decision. And they made the decision to keep Kenny Pickett in the South Side.

I don’t think the shock is going to wear off any time soon.

I’ll say it right here that I think this is great. Yes, there’s going to be pressure on Pickett as the Steelers first-round pick, but that would be the case anywhere. First-round quarterbacks have certain expectations, and they’ll forever be judged as not just a quarterback but a First-Round Quarterback.

Pressure aside, I think it’s great that we all get to watch the next stage of Pickett’s career up close. We could have watched him regardless of where he got drafted, but with him here, we’re going to be really close to it, and I’m excited for that.

He’s going to have challenges, to be certain. The Steelers roster has some holes, and we’ve seen that the last few years. But I’m also buying into the idea that he can help fill some of those holes, or maybe even cover a few up, with the skill set he’s bringing to the other side of the building.

Are there question marks? Of course there are. Not the nonsense questions about hand size or things like that. But an NFL team should ask questions about how Pickett’s game will translate to the pro level. Without a doubt. And I don’t have answers to those questions. We’ll have to wait and see.

But I think there’s as lot to like. I think Pickett’s poise in the pocket, his accuracy on deep passes, his touch and zip on intermediate throws, his willingness to use the middle of the field, his ability to keep plays alive, his familiarity with pro-style offenses, his knowledge of studying defenses and the pure, uninhibited work ethic born of competitive fire - I don’t think there are questions about those things, and those will be the traits that give him a chance to succeed.

And I feel like this should be said, too:

The Steelers drafting Kenny Pickett in 2022 has nothing to do with the Steelers passing on Dan Marino in 1983. Nothing at all. This wasn’t making up for passing on Marino, this wasn’t atoning, this wasn’t an attempt to right the wrongs of 40 years ago.

This was about the Steelers looking at the guys who were available at pick No. 20 and saying, “Kenny Pickett is the best option to make our team better.”

Period.

And so Pickett became the 26th Pitt Panther to be taken in the first round of the NFL Draft and the second Pitt quarterback to hear his name called in the first round. Some of the greatest players in school history - Tony Dorsett, Larry Fitzgerald, Hugh Green, Darrelle Revis, Aaron Donald, Bill Fralic, the aforementioned Marino - have been first-round picks, and now Pickett, on the heels of the greatest season by a quarterback in Pitt history, is in that group.

What a year it has been for the kid from Ocean Township, New Jersey.

The rich get richer
Back to the current team, and I’ll admit: that headline is a bit of an exaggeration.

I’m going to talk in this section about Pitt landing Jerrod “Bub” Means as a transfer receiver from Louisiana Tech, and saying “the rich get richer” is probably a bit of hyperbole, but we’ll go with it.

Look, if you’ve read these columns or listened to the podcast, you know what I think of Pitt’s receivers room. It’s deep, it’s talented and it’s the strongest position on the team.

Heading into last season, I said those things about the linebackers. This year, it’s the receivers. They have a bona fide superstar, high-end talent throughout the group and enough experience that those guys won’t be surprised when they step into a college football atmosphere.

That’s on the general level. On the more specific level, Pitt has just about everything you could want in a receiver room. Size (Jared Wayne, Jaden Bradley), speed (Jaylon Barden) and precision (Konata Mumpfield), plus the do-everything-better-than-anyone-else talents of Jordan Addison.

Now there’s one more guy joining the group. And sure, Bub Means, what with his two-time-transfer and relatively low production at Louisiana Tech, seems like a lottery ticket. But the more I’ve looked at his play for the Bulldogs, the more intrigued I am.

You know the basic stats: 22 catches, 430 yards, 2 touchdowns. Those numbers aren’t jumping off the page. Pitt had eight players last season - including two tight ends and two running backs - catch more passes than he did. Four of those eight Pitt players also had more receiving yards than Means (again, including one tight end) and five Panthers eclipsed Means’ two receiving touchdowns (one more time: including two tight ends).

So Means would have been behind a bunch of guys on Pitt’s roster last season with those stats. But there’s one stat category where he wouldn’t have trailed anyone:

Yards per catch.

Means averaged 19.6 yards per catch in 2021. Barden paced the Panthers at 19.3.

Now we’ve got something to work with. And the more we look, the more we find that Means could add something to Pitt’s receiver room that isn’t entirely there just quite yet:

A deep threat.

Means was targeted 39 times last season. 17 of those targets - 43.6% - were 20 yards or more downfield, according to Pro Football Focus. He only caught five of those deep passes - that’s not a great percentage - but those five catches accounted for 199 of his 430 receiving yards and both of his receiving touchdowns.

Of all FBS receivers with at least 30 targets in 2021, his average depth of target (ADOT) of 17.5 yards ranked No. 22. When Louisiana Tech went deep, Means was the primary target. And while his overall reception rate of 56.4% is lower than you would like to see, only seven FBS receivers who had a higher ADOT than Means caught a higher percentage of their targets.

Before we get too far in the weeds on numbers and stats, I think you can see where I’m going:

Bub Means could potentially bring the deep threat to Pitt’s passing game. Addison did that last season with 40 targets of 20 yards or more, and while Wayne actually had 13 deep targets himself, Addison was really the only receiver who was used as consistently as a downfield threat the way Means was at Louisiana Tech.

Which brings me back to my original point: the Pitt coaches took a strong position group with versatility, talent and experience, and made it even more versatile with a talented, experienced player.

Looks like a good add.

Relationships matter
Okay, that’s a cliche. But cliches don’t become cliches without at least a bit of truth giving birth to them, right?

Well, there’s truth to this one, too.

Relationships really do matter.

That applies in all walks of life, but it’s really, really important in college sports.

Relationships matter in maintaining a roster. Relationships matter in building a culture. And the trickle-down impact of relationships can, I believe, be the difference in a team’s success.

It goes without saying, of course, that relationships matter in recruiting. We all know that and accept it. But I would say that it’s not just about building the relationships; it’s also crucial to maintain those relationships long-term, because you never know when it will pay off.

Take Bub Means, for example. He played his first year of college football at Tennessee and then decided to transfer. While he was in the process of looking for a new destination, one of the schools in pursuit was Rutgers. Tiquan Underwood was the receivers coach for the Scarlet Knights, and he built a relationship with Means at that point.

Means ended up at Louisiana Tech, but when he went into the transfer portal this spring, guess who he heard from?

You already know the answer.

I can’t say that having a prior relationship with Underwood is the reason Means picked Pitt without even visiting any other school (Auburn and Miami were interested in him), but it certainly didn’t hurt.

And we’ve seen stories like this before. Really, I feel like we’ve seen things like this every year in almost all of Pitt’s recruiting classes.

Take someone like Keyshon Camp in the 2016 class. Pitt maintained its relationship with Camp even while he was committed to USC, so when he reopened his recruitment, the Panthers were in prime position to land him.

They got Damarri Mathis and Deslin Alexandre in similar fashion in 2017. Mathis had been committed to South Carolina and Alexandre was committed to N.C. State, but Pitt kept up the relationships and ultimately flipped those two guys.

Mychale Salahuddin in 2018. Rashad Battle in 2020. Naquan Brown and P.J. O’Brien in 2021.

These guys were committed to other schools, but the Pitt coaches maintained the relationships so that when opportunity presented itself, they were poised to capitalize.

I think this is even more crucial now in the era of the transfer portal. Don’t burn bridges with recruits who turn you down, because you never know if you might be sweet-talking that same kid in a year or two when he decides to transfer.

Leave it on good terms, show your support and make sure he knows you’ll be there for him no matter what, so when he ends up looking for a new home, you still have that good relationship to fall back on.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

What will be the strongest position next season?
When I say “next season” I’m talking about 2023. We already established that the receivers will be Pitt’s strongest position in 2022, and I believed the linebackers were tops in 2021. Or, at the very least, I believed that heading into the 2021 season.

Let’s roll the clock forward and ask the question: what position will we be talking about in those terms next summer?

The defensive line is a candidate. It certainly would have applied in 2020 and 2021, and you could make a case for the 2022 season, too.

But what will it be in 2023? At end, Deslin Alexandre will certainly be gone after this season, and Habakkuk Baldonado and John Morgan will have the option to return as super seniors, but I could see both guys leaving for the NFL. At tackle, Devin Danielson, David Green and Tyler Bentley will all be able to come back at super seniors, and my guess is that at least two and possibly all three of them do. Calijah Kancey could also leave for the NFL after the 2022 season if he has the kind of year I am expecting.

But Pitt will bring back Dayon Hayes, who should have a breakout season in 2022. Plus Nahki Johnson as a third-year player and Sam Okunlola and Jimmy Scott as second-year players are all intriguing; it just remains to be seen how much playing time they get between now and then. Bam Brima could also be in the mix there.

Beyond Danielson, Bentley and Green, Brima could play inside at tackle along with DeAndre Jules, Elliot Donald, Dorien Ford and Sean FitzSimmons. That looks like a pretty good group, but again, there isn’t currently a lot of experience to go on.

So I don’t know if the defensive line can take the mantle just quite yet.

I think we will look favorably on the linebackers a year from now; that group could be in consideration as the strongest heading into 2023. And the defensive backs - corners and safeties - will probably be perennially strong for the foreseeable future.

Honestly, as I look over the depth chart and consider who Pitt has now, who Pitt will have in 2023 and who could be added to the roster between now and then, I might have to call a repeat:

This summer, we’re talking about receiver being the strongest position on the team, and I think we’ll be saying the same thing next summer.

Addison will be gone, but Mumpfield, Barden and Bradley will be back. Means probably will be, too. And I think there’s a real chance Wayne returns for his super senior year.

That’s five guys who have varying degrees of successful college production already and will get even more this fall, and it doesn’t even include the guys we haven’t seen yet - Myles Alston, Addison Copeland, Che Nwabuko and whoever Tiquan Underwood is able to pull in the 2023 class (he’s certainly aiming high).

I know I said it was hyperbole to claim that the rich were getting richer when speaking of the receivers, so maybe I’ll just say it this way:

The rich will stay rich.

Is that the Lyke Approach?
Pitt hired a new swimming coach this week. You might have missed that news, but I bet some parts of it will sound familiar.

In looking for a head coach, Director of Athletics Heather Lyke sought out a top assistant at a program with significant and recent success.

Does that ring any bells?

You might not know Chase Kreitler, who was an assistant coach for Cal when the Bears won NCAA Championships in 2019 and this past season. Just like you might not have known Mike Bell, who was an assistant baseball coach at Florida State when the Seminoles made the College World Series in 2012 and 2017. Just like you might not have known Lance White, who was an assistant women’s basketball coach at Florida State when the Seminoles won 25+ games four years in a row. I imagine you didn’t know Emily Boissonneault either; she was an assistant lacrosse coach at James Madison when the Dukes made four consecutive NCAA Championships and won the title in 2018.
You might not have known any of them, but they all fit in with the theme here:

Top assistants at successful programs.

Jeff Capel and Keith Gavin fit it, too. You probably knew those guys before Pitt hired them, but they’re prime examples of what has been, for roughly five years, Lyke’s approach.

In fact, of the 10 head coaches Lyke has hired since March 2017, seven were successful assistant coaches prior to coming to Pitt.

(Capel, of course, had some head-coaching experience, but his most recent job was seven years on the bench at Duke.)

Only women’s soccer coach Randy Waldrum, who had a long career as a successful head coach, softball coach Jodi Hermanek, who was the head coach at Ohio, and diving coach Katie Kasprzak, who was in charge of the Duke Diving Club, didn’t come to Pitt as sitting college assistants, at least among Lyke’s hires.

So there’s the question:

Is that a good approach?

I think so. I think that if you’re Pitt and you’re not necessarily a “blue blood” in a sport where you’re trying to find a head coach, then you’ve got to get creative. You’re probably not going to hire away the head coach at a top school, so you’re basically left with two options:

Hire a successful head coach at a lower-level program or hire the top assistant at a higher-level program.

So far, Lyke has mostly gone for the second approach, with the exception of Waldrum and Hermanek.

And so far, the results have mostly been good.

There are some notable exceptions, of course - Capel and the men’s basketball program being the most prominent - but the last year or so has seen considerable improvement from most of the programs that have been remade under the Lyke Doctrine. That includes the lacrosse team, which just finished its first year of existence with one ACC regular-season win and one ACC Tournament win.

Ultimately, the litmus test for the Lyke Doctrine will be Capel. The men’s basketball program is one of the two most prominent in the athletic department, and if that hire fails, then it will be an indictment rather than an endorsement of Lyke’s approach.

But it seems clear that this is the path Pitt’s Director of Athletics wants to follow. We’ll see how it works.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt will go back-to-back on first-rounders
Pitt broke a seven-year drought of first-round Draft picks last night, and I’ll predict that the Panthers break an even longer streak next year.

After having a first-round Draft pick for the first time since 2014, I’m going on record that Pitt will get back-to-back first-round picks for the first time since 2007/08. In those two years, The Panthers saw Darrelle Revis (2007) and Jeff Otah (2008) go in the first round.

I’m calling for it to happen again: Kenny Pickett (2022) and Jordan Addison (2023).

I imagine there will be debate about Addison. He’s going to hear about his size; Pitt lists him at 6’0”, which means he’ll probably officially measure 5’11” or 5’10”. That’s not a deal-breaker - receivers can certainly succeed in the NFL at that height - but it’s something to overcome.

Take Ohio State’s dynamic duo of Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave, who went back-to-back in the first round last night: Olave measured a flat 6’0” and Wilson was 5’11”, but they both also ran sub-4.4 40’s.

Addison will need to do something like that to put himself in the mix for a first-round pick. I don’t know what he runs, but he certainly looks fast enough to me.

That’s really my only hesitation about him being a first-round pick. I fully expect Addison to have another really productive season in 2022. Don’t let all the talk of a return-to-the-run offense under Frank Cignetti fool you; yes, Pitt wants to be more committed to the ground game this season, but you’re not dealing with morons here:

Addison is the best player on the team, and it’s not really close. I know that. You know that. Pat Narduzzi knows that. Frank Cignetti knows that. And all parties know very well that Pitt’s best chance to win football games in 2022 comes from getting the ball to Addison early and often.

So that’s what they’ll do.

Will he have another season with 100 catches and nearly 1,600 yards and 17 touchdowns? Probably not. I think Pitt will keep throwing the ball a lot, but there’s space between “throwing it a lot” and “throwing it as much as Mark Whipple did.” The Panthers can still have a productive or even prolific passing offense without piling up quite as many pass attempts as they did last season.

But there’s no reason Addison should finish the 2022 season with less than 80 catches. And while 80 catches is quite a bit less than 100, it still would have been the third-most in the ACC last season, tied for No. 25 nationally and the fifth-highest single-season total in Pitt history.

So yeah, still pretty good.

If Addison puts up modest-by-his-standards totals of 80 catches for 1,200 yards and eight touchdowns, he’ll finish his career as Pitt’s all-time leader in receptions, second in receiving yards (behind only Tyler Boyd) and third in receiving touchdowns (behind Larry Fitzgerald and Antonio Bryant) - and he wouldn’t be far from taking the No. 1 spot in both of those two categories.

But I digress. I don’t think anyone doubts that Addison is in line for a big junior season, even if it isn’t quite as big as his sophomore campaign.

What I’m predicting is, he’ll have a good enough junior year that it positions him to capitalize during the offseason that follows. He’ll shine at the NFL Draft Combine and Pro Day and parlay those performances into a first-round pick, giving Pitt two of those in a row.

One last note: the Panthers’ longest streak of first-round picks was the impressive run from 1983-89. Pitt had 11 first-round Draft picks over that span, with at least one in each of those seven seasons. And it was an impressive group, including guys like Jimbo Covert, Dan Marino, Tim Lewis, Bill Fralic, Craig Heyward and more.