MORE FROM THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING CAMP - Pitt is a top school for Ga. DB after visit | Practice notes: OL lineups, new positions and more | Video: QBs and WRs on the first day | Narduzzi on the offense, position moves, Paris Ford and more | Video: Narduzzi talks after the first day of camp | Slideshow: Photos from the first practice | FREE ARTICLE: Pickett gets started with his newest coordinator

In this week's Panther-Lair.com 3-2-1 Column, we're thinking about Kenny Pickett, Mark Whipple, Pitt's defense and a lot more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

That’s not good
So it’s almost over.

By this time - whatever time you’re reading this - on Sunday, the Pitt basketball team will be done with its regular season. The only thing remaining will be a trip to Charlotte for the ACC Tournament, a stay that shouldn’t last much more than a day or two before the Panthers are sent packing back home.

And while everybody wants to win and everybody’s a competitor and everybody loves the game, I’m guessing most people involved in the operation are probably looking forward to things wrapping up (other than Jared Wilson-Frame; he probably wants to keep playing, but I imagine he’ll have a chance to do so for a paycheck soon enough).

But as the end of the season approaches with the regular-season finale against Notre Dame on Saturday and then at least one game on Tuesday, it’s hard to shake a certain feeling that has been creeping up for a few weeks now:

For all of its struggles, for all of the (few) ups and (many) downs, this Pitt team hasn’t really gotten better over the course of the season.

That’s concerning.

It wasn’t always that way. For a brief period there, it looked like the trajectory was pointed up. The Panthers notched their two ACC wins, topping Louisville and then Florida State for a pair of home victories that energized the fan base. But since then, it’s been a swoon in the best of times and a hard nosedive in the worst of times.

It’s not that anyone expected Pitt to beat Carolina or Duke or Virginia. But losing like the Panthers did to Georgia Tech and Boston College and Wake Forest and Miami…that was tough to stomach. And along the way, those promising young freshmen have fallen into deep slumps.

Au’Diese Toney was the first to go, being outmanned by most ACC lineups despite his hard work andenergy. Trey McGowens went next, seeing his scoring and then his overall performance drop off as he encountered a variety of issues (not the least of which being the fact that he stopped getting as many calls from the refs). Then they were joined by Xavier Johnson, Pitt’s best overall player this season who has gone into a hole in the last few games.

Maybe some of this was inevitable with the freshmen. They came in hot and got off to a great start, but then the grind of the season and the punishing blows of loss after loss became too much. But that doesn’t account for a player like Terrell Brown, who approached Gilbert Brown levels of maddening inconsistency this season.

Why didn’t he get any better? Why didn’t he show any real moves toward positive consistency?

Why didn’t any of them?

I don’t have any answers to those questions. All I know is, the end of the season is coming, and that means Jeff Capel and company are going to have a chance to hit a reset button and start all over again next fall.

A crucial relationship
Previously, it said in this space that Dave Borbely is the most important coach on Pat Narduzzi’s staff this season, and that’s still true.

It also previously said in this space that the latest offensive coordinator was the most important hiring of Narduzzi’s time at Pitt, and that’s still true.

Today in this space, it says that the most crucial relationship on the team this season will be the one between Mark Whipple and Kenny Pickett. Yes, that’s an extension of that point above about the importance of getting the coordinator hire right, but we’re putting a slightly finer point on it today.

Quite simply, Whipple and Pickett have to gel. They have to click. They have to mesh. They have to understand each other and each has to be an extension of the other. Whipple has to get the way Pickett’s mind works and the things he sees on the field; Pickett has to get the way Whipple’s mind works and the things he sees on the field.

We’ll talk about Pickett specifically in a second, but a lot of this is on Whipple. He’s the adult in the room, so to speak. He’s the coach with almost 40 years of experience. He’s the former head coach. He’s the guy who has “Big Ben’s QB coach” on his resume. He’s the one who has to fix the mess that is Pitt’s passing game.

He’s the one who has to be the whisperer. He has to figure out Pickett.

What can Pickett do? What can’t he do? What can he learn? What isn’t worth trying?

Whipple has from now until the ribs start cooking to answer those questions.

There’s been no mincing of words since Whipple was hired in January. Pat Narduzzi has made it very clear that he’s looking for a much-improved passing game, and that has laid a very clear directive for Whipple:

Fix the passing game and, by extension, fix Pickett. Who knows how high Pickett’s ceiling is? It’s probably not as high as many of us believed after the Miami game in 2017, but it’s also probably not as low as many now believe after last season. It’s somewhere in between.

I still think he’s better than he showed in 14 games last fall. I think he can do better than 140 yards per game and 58.1% completions. In 2018, he had more games with zero touchdown passes (six) than he had with multiple touchdown passes (four); I think he can flip that particular balance. He also had five games with single-digit completions; he has to flip that balance.

And if he’s going to flip those numbers, if he’s going to improve on 12 games of mediocre stats - he was pretty solid against Georgia Tech and Wake Forest- then it’s going to come down to Whipple making it work.

Whipple shouldn’t get all the credit if things improve, but he’ll have a big hand in the results this season - one way or the other.

It’s on Pickett, too
Lest we forget the johnnies and joes, I can’t leave that last section and not say this:

Pickett has to step it up, too.

I can’t remember the last player who went from looking like such a sure thing to being such a question mark in the span of 12 months as Pickett has. Coming out of that 2017 Miami game, there were Pitt fans legitimately beefing with Pickett’s absence from Heisman Trophy dark horse lists. There were Pitt fans debating with Penn State fans about the long-term careers of Pickett and Trace McSorley. There was talk that Pickett could be Pitt’s best quarterback since…

12 months later, people are wondering how Jeff George, Jr., looks.

Now, 14 games is not exactly a small sample size, and Pickett’s performance was below the line for most of those. Like I said earlier, his 197 yards on 16-of-23 passing against Georgia Tech was solid and his 316 yards and three touchdowns on 23-of-30 at Wake Forest was really good. But those don’t come close to overshadowing those single-digit completion games or those zero-touchdown games or the eight-yard game against Clemson.

When the season ended, Shawn Watson took the fall for those performances. That’s not to say he took the fall undeservedly; at the very least, Watson showed himself to be ineffective as a play-caller, and there’s a case to be made for Pickett not being put in the best position to succeed over the course of a game.

But Watson wasn’t the only problem and Pickett can’t slip through without taking any of the blame. At times, he struggled with coverages. At other times, he struggled with pressure - whether it was close to him or not. He was sacked 33 times in 14 games; a lot of those were on the offensive line, but he also had issues with holding onto the ball too long.

Again, some of that will fall on Watson and the play-calling, but we can’t let Pickett completely off the hook.

Now, Pickett has a new coordinator and he’s got 15 starts under his belt, so two of the biggest issues he faced last season have changed (presumably) in his favor. The offensive line remains a work-in-progress, but those other hurdles have been removed.

Which means Pickett has to pick it up. He’s got to play better this season. And he’s got to take ownership of his performances. That’s not to say that he hasn’t in the past, but if he doesn’t approach this offseason with a clear focus on improving his own play, then there isn’t going to be any improvement.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Can Pitt really reach the top of the mountain?
One talking point that’s going to keep coming up with Pitt this offseason is how the Panthers won the Coastal Division but failed to win the ACC, so now their goal is to take the next step.

They got to the conference title game; now they want to win it.

Okay. Sounds like a plan.

But can they do it? Or, really, can anyone? Because right now, Clemson looks really, really scary. I mean, that’s nothing new. Clemson has looked scary for awhile, and the Tigers have faced very little resistance out of the rest of the conference.

They’ve won the last four ACC Championship Games, of course, and added national championships in two of those four seasons. They’ve also got a 30-2 regular-season record against conference opponents over that span, and nobody has really been able to get close to them: in those 32 ACC games, the Tigers averaged 39.2 points per game and allowed just 16.6.

They’re doubling-up on teams in their own conference without any real issue.

Now, having Florida State in a slump helps, because the Seminoles should be the most likely team to challenge Clemson on an annual basis. Miami was supposed to be a competitor, too, but I’m at the point where I’ll start believing in Miami again when Miami proves it is capable of something again. Virginia Tech isn’t quite what it was 20 years ago either.

Of course, none of this is to say that nobody can beat Clemson. Syracuse beat Clemson two years ago. Pitt did it the year before. But those are the only teams to pull it off in the last four years, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that the Tigers probably aren’t going to be unseated anytime soon.

I know that dynasties don’t last, but Alabama is doing a pretty good job of making it seem like a permanent condition. Is Clemson at that level? It sure looks like it, what with Trevor Lawrence in town for two more years and the Tigers looking like a favorite for the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2020 - who just happens to be a quarterback.

So I’m all for Pitt trying to take the next step, and hey, anything can happen on a random night in Charlotte. I’ve seen enough crazy stuff to know that’s the reality of the sport. But right now, it seems like a tall order for Pitt - or anyone - to climb that particular mountain.

What’s next for the defense?
Every team has a slogan. Each season, the coaches come up with some motivating phrase that they hope will define the team for that year. After the 13-9 game, Dave Wannstedt went with “Prove it” for the 2008 season. Todd Graham had a litany of phrases, slogans and rhyming couplets. Pat Narduzzi started off with “Win the jersey” and then went more vague with last year’s “Lock the gates,” which I still don’t really get.

I’m not sure what Narduzzi has planned for this season, but if it were up to me, I would probably suggest something like this:

“It’s time.”

Because, you know…it’s time.

That applies to a lot of elements of the Pitt football team, and it definitely applies to Narduzzi himself. It’s time to win more than eight games. It’s time to be competitive in every game. It’s time to beat North Carolina.

We’ll talk a lot about all of those things over the next nine months, but for now, I keep thinking about the defense and what it’s going to be this season. Because just like Narduzzi, it’s time.

It’s time for Pitt’s defense to be legit in every game. Not just six or eight or 10 but all 12 or 13 or 14.

The Panthers have given up at least 50 points in one game each of the last three seasons, and while Penn State’s 51 derived from some special teams contributions, UCF easily could have pushed its 45 to 50 or 60 if it were so inclined.

That’s the kind of thing that has to stop. The Pitt defense needs to take the next step of not just controlling lackluster offenses like Virginia Tech and Virginia but also keeping better offenses in check. You’re probably not going to completely shut down an offense like the one UCF had a year ago, but you don’t need to give up points at will like the Panthers did.

You don’t need to give up 37 points or more in six games like Pitt did. Even in wins like the Syracuse or Duke games, Pitt’s defense made plays in a timely fashion, but not a consistent one. Get some more consistent play out of the defense, and the Panthers don’t have to go to overtime against Syracuse or get a huge play to beat Duke.

Pitt does have a pretty strong core returning. Rashad Weaver, Amir Watts, Elias Reynolds, Dane Jackson, Jason Pinnock and Damar Hamlin are back as starters. Patrick Jones, Keyshon Camp, Jaylen Twyman and Saleem Brightwell look like good options to step in at a few of the other spots.

The defense is full of Narduzzi’s players and they are coming off a pair of pretty solid half-seasons - the defense was solid in the second half of the 2017 season and a fair number of games last year. Now they need to put it together for a full season.

Like I said, it’s time.

JUST ONE MORE THING

Familiar faces
This is a bit of inside baseball, but when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you think about things like this.

As I was standing at practice on Wednesday looking out over the indoor facility, I couldn’t help but notice how many new faces there are. Mark Whipple and Chris Beatty are the obvious ones, since they’re additions to the full-time coaching staff, but even beyond those guys, there’s all kinds of change in those ancillary positions that fill out the offices.

You see this when you watch a practice: there are the players in their uniforms and coaches in their “coaches uniforms” and then there are the others - quality control coaches and grad assistants who dress like coaches but work behind the coaches. Their jobs are valuable; there’s no question about that. Those guys put in long hours breaking down film and preparing cut-ups for the full-time staff, whether it’s video of Pitt practicing or opponents.

And these are transient positions. Grad assistants are usually two-year appointments; the quality control coaches usually stay in place for a year or two until they can get a more permanent job. It’s actually a bit of a surprise that Pitt had James Patton and Tim Cooper were on staff for multiple seasons as quality control coaches; I didn’t expect those guys to be around more than a year.

Anyway, as I was looking at new faces and trying to pick out the ones I recognized, it occurred to me how much turnover there has been since I started this job. My first season was 2005; that was Dave Wannstedt’s first season at Pitt so I got to know that staff - the full-time coaches and the ancillary support staff - fairly well.

I went back and looked at the 2005 media guide and counted 26 people listed as part of the staff, from Wannstedt and his nine assistants down through the strength staff, the grad assistants and the four secretaries.

Then I looked at the 2019 spring prospectus. First of all, that one lists 40 staffers; there are twice as many grad assistants, more trainers, a dietician, creative media, an “assistant director of broadcast and video production,” operations GA’s, program GA’s, multiple recruiting staffers with titles that each seem to be a unique conflagration of the same words and, oddly enough, only two secretaries (that part of the staff shrunk, it seems).

There are also, by my count about five people who were in the Pitt football program in 2005 and still are now:

Chris LaSala (associate athletic director for football administration), Bob Junko (director of player development and high school relations), Rob Blanc (head athletic trainer), Vicki Kline (administrative assistant to Pat Narduzzi) and Lynnie Koontz (administrative assistant for recruiting).

Now, Charlie Partridge was here in 2005 and is here now, but he left and then returned. The same goes for video coordinator Chad Bogard, so I’m not counting those guys. I could also count Danny Kozusko; he’s an assistant equipment manager who was a student manager in 2005. He wasn’t in the media guide back then, but he’s been here all this time so I would count him as a familiar face.

I would also be remiss to not mention E.J. Borghetti, the sports information director whose roles and responsibilities in the Athletic Department have extended well beyond that title over the years. While not technically part of the football program, he’s also indispensably linked to the football program, and he’s been here through that time.

For all intents and purposes, though, we’re talking about roughly a half-dozen staffers who have lasted through Dave Wannstedt, Mike Haywood, Todd Graham and now Pat Narduzzi.

I know that turnover is in the nature of this business. Coaches come and go. But if this program had any moorings in the mid-2000’s, they have almost all been replaced, save for those people I mentioned who have been, in my view, irreplaceable.

(Really, it’s a testament to people like LaSala and Junko and the administrative assistants that they’ve lasted this long; they’ve proven their usefulness, and it says something about vital they are to the program).

Maybe I’m just getting nostalgic or something. The reality is, nobody sticks around in college athletics. I’m looking at a 14-year time frame, but even if you cut that to, I don’t know, maybe five years, it doesn’t look much better. I said there are 40 coaches and staffers listed in the spring prospectus; only 12 of them were part of Narduzzi’s first staff system.

Granted, some of those positions weren’t even created yet in 2015, but you get the point:

Nobody sticks around long. Continuity can be a dangerous goal. It can lull you to sleep and cause you to miss a change that needs to be made. But there’s also something to be said for familiar faces, people who have been around long enough to know how crazy things can get.