The 3-2-1 Column: Pitt lands DL help, kickoff times announced, and more

The Pitt football program has June official visits on the horizon, but that did not slow down recruiting this week. The Panthers picked up some much-needed help on the defensive line via the transfer portal on Wednesday and we take a look at both subjects and a whole lot more in this week’s 3-2-1 Column.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Pitt lands some defensive line help

The Pitt football program’s strength for many years has been the play of its defensive line. Although, things look fairly different as we sit today. The Panthers lost renowned defensive line coach Charlie Partridge to the NFL earlier this offseason, plus three key players exited the program via the transfer portal. Couple those two things with some additional losses to graduation, and the whole defensive line will look entirely different for the 2024 season.

The Panthers addressed the depth in the immediate aftermath of last season, by netting three transfers in Nick James, Nate Matlack, and David Ojeigbe. All three additions were necessary, but it still felt like this spot needed replenished further. Pitt grabbed a transfer from Nebraska defensive end Chief Borders earlier this spring, and just when you thought that might have been it, the Panthers landed one more transfer portal addition on Wednesday.

Anthony Johnson announced his commitment to Pitt earlier this week, which came as quite a surprise for several reasons. The Pittsburgh native is about as well-traveled as any college football player in the country. His journey as a prospect started back in 2017, when he helped Jeannette to WPIAL and Pennsylvania state championships before moving to Cleveland as a senior.

As a collegiate player, Johnson initially attended Bowling Green, before landing at Youngstown State for the past three seasons. The 6-foot-3 and 295-pound linemen opted to enter the portal at the conclusion of the 2023 season after producing 25 tackles, 6.5 TFLs, and four sacks. He quickly became a hot commodity in the transfer portal with multiple power-five offers.

Johnson landed at Illinois back in December. He then went through spring drills with the Illini, and looked poised to be an impact player for them, but because college football is crazy, he opted to hit the transfer portal a second time following spring ball.

In his second recruitment this offseason, Johnson once again had plenty of power-five opportunities, including Pitt, but he committed to Mississippi State and that was thought to be the end of it. But again, we are in strange times. Johnson never technically signed with the Bulldogs, and sure enough, he flipped his allegiance to Pitt earlier this week and has since joined the program.

Did you get all of that?

Whatever it took for Johnson to land at Pitt is besides the point. The Panthers needed some more help on the defensive line and he is the second quality pickup this spring following in the footsteps of Borders. The impact should be significant for both parties. Johnson is looking to prove himself at a higher level, and Pitt simply needs more depth and talent up front. The match is already established.

It should result in a fair amount of playing time for the sixth-year senior, whether that equates to him being a full-time starter for the Panthers just yet is hard to say. He should immediately enter the rotation at a minimum, which is still a little murky. Pitt landed a commitment from Indiana transfer, Nick James, back in December. The Panthers have a trio of returnees with some experience in Elliot Donald, Sean FitzSimmons, and Nahki Johnson, then the rest of the rotations is rounded out by four players with freshman eligibility.

Needless to say, there are a lot of unknowns here with this position, especially with Tim Daoust taking over for the highly-successful Partridge. This whole group is going to have a new look and feel, and at this stage of the offseason, it is hard to put too high of expectations on them.

June official visits take center stage

I think Johnson’s commitment should probably mark the end of Pitt’s roster building for the 2024 season. Obviously, you can never say never, but I think it’s about that time where the next high school recruiting class takes priority above all else. It’s June, and for Pitt football, that means hosting a boatload of official visitors.

Ever since the NCAA allowed for June official visits to take place back in 2018, Pat Narduzzi and his staff have built their collective recruiting strategy recruiting their class over this month. Typically, Pitt will host upwards of 40 prospects spread across three weekends in June.

The goal there is to build the bulk of the recruiting class in these few weeks, with the intent of holding on to most of them by the time the December signing period arrives. In today’s college football, you can’t hold onto every recruit you would like for six months and decommitments are bound to happen, but generally most of your class can still derive from these next couple of weeks.

Back in the class of 2019, when this timeline all started, Pitt landed 11 of its 19 commitments in June. In Pitt’s most recent signing class, nine of the 21 signees committed in June of last year. It’s held true for years now, and we can only assume that will continue in the weeks ahead.

Pitt has a solid base with its 2024 recruiting class as it stands now. The Panthers have netted six commitments thus far, and have addressed quarterback already, which isn’t always the case for this program at this stage of the recruiting calendar.

It’s hard to project with the rule changes ahead of what recruiting classes will look like with the expanded roster size reportedly coming, but Pitt has over 20 players with senior eligibility for this upcoming season, so I would expect this to be a fairly large signing class in general, even with Narduzzi’s penchant towards adding through the portal. Given that kind of roster space, then this should be another active June for the Pitt coaching staff.

By our count, Pitt is expected to host at least 35 uncommitted 2025 prospects for official visits in June. That number can move and shake quite a bit until the visits actually happen. These visits will take place on three separate weekends with a Thursday-Saturday format on June 6-8, 13-15, and 20-22nd.

Official visits mean that the school pays for the whole trip for the prospect and two family members from air fare to hotels and also meals. On these visits, the get to see every single aspect each school has to offer, with a red carpet style treatment for a 48-hour period.

There used to be limits and restrictions on how many visits a prospect could take and how many a school could host, but that has since changed. Even though recruits have ‘unlimited’ official visits they are permitted to take, many still focus in on a couple of schools and decide from there, which should be the case with many of the prospects Pitt is hosting this month.

(As always, we keep a running tab on these things which can be found here).

Recruiting in general or more specifically official visits are going to be the big topic of conversation around here for the time being. We are less than 100 days until the start of the 2024 season, so it’s a pretty straightforward schedule from here on out: recruiting dominates the headlines in June, there is a little downtime in July, before training camp and the games ramp up in August.

The schedule takes shape

Pitt has known its 12 opponent for the 2024 football season for some time now, and plus the order in which the games would be played, too. On Thursday, Pitt, the ACC, and its television partners announced the kickoff times for Pitt’s first four games.

Pitt’s season will kickoff against Kent State at noon on August 31st on ESPNU. The Panthers will then travel to Cincinnati for another noon kick, which will be carried on either ESPN or ESPN2. Pitt’s highly-anticipated rematch with West Virginia in the 107th Backyard Brawl will be another nationally televised game on the ESPN family, and that is set to kickoff at 3:30. The league only announced the first three weeks for television, but for good measure, Pitt also revealed the week four game against Youngstown State is set to be at 3:30. That contest is scheduled to be the school’s homecoming celebration as well.

It is interesting that Pitt’s first two games of the 2024 season will kick off at noon. The Panthers did not have a noon kickoff until the final game of the season in 2023, and will surpass that total by September 7th of this year.

Obviously, Labor Day weekend is the official kickoff for college football and one of the sports’ biggest couple of days in terms of viewership with the NFL starting a week later. In recent years, this weekend has been filled with primetime matchups ranging from Thursday up until Monday night, and it’s no different this year. It’s not surprising Pitt’s opener against a MAC team is buried as an undercard matchup.

The two big announcements came with Pitt’s week two and week three showdowns against Cincinnati and West Virginia. Both of those matchups were night games a year ago, and will be moved up in terms of start time, but will still get a national television window.

The Panthers will be making the trip to Cincinnati’s Nippert Stadium in week two, the team’s first game there since 2012. It will be a noon kick, but given the small capacity of Nippert under 40,000, Pitt may still be walking into a tough road environment anyway. The Bearcats got the better of Pitt last year, but it turned out in the end that neither team was very good in 2023. This should be a good barometer for each squad to see if they have made improvements.

I have to say, I was fully expecting the Backyard Brawl to be a noon kick. The Pirates have a 6:40 home game that night, which certainly crowds things a bit on the North Shore. In many cases, Pitt and the Pirates can coexist and play on the same day, but given the expected crowd a Backyard Brawl typically brings, it may have made sense to stagger the two games and start it early.

A similar situation arose in 2016, when Pitt hosted Penn State for the first time after a long hiatus. The Pirates played that day, which slid the Pitt game to a noon kick and I expected a similar situation here. Obviously, it can be done logistically or else it would not have been scheduled this way.

Pitt took the first installment of this current series in 2022, with the Mountaineers gaining bragging rights after a 17-6 win last season. The two schools will meet this year and in 2025, before a brief three-year break, with the series resuming in 2029 in Pittsburgh.

It is still noteworthy to me that no matter how much college sports changes from conference realignment to NIL to the transfer portal to revenue sharing…that there are still a few constants. Pitt and West Virginia will be getting a prime national TV spot for the third year in a row, so lost in everything else, tradition still does carry some weight in this sport, which is refreshing to see.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Now that the roster appears set, who starts for Pitt basketball?

The Pitt basketball social media team sent out some posts this week showing off the jersey numbers the newcomers will be wearing for this upcoming season. As we know, Pitt technically has one roster spot which has yet to filled, but in a way that post of the new numbers was sort of pretty big indicator that Jeff Capel is done building next year’s team.

At this point, Pitt may already be stretched pretty thin NIL-wise, but also there is not a whole lot of playing time to offer that any player of significance would be looking for at this point. The Panthers have a well-balanced roster filled with guards, wings, and post players with varying degrees of experience. Pitt has some key returnees from last year’s 20-win team, some talented additions from the transfer portal, a few guys coming off injuries looking to bounce back, and also a unique recruiting class as well.

When you throw it together, it’s hard not to think this probably the most talented roster Jeff Capel has had in his tenure at Pitt. It’s also likely means the expectations for this team will be pretty high too, and at this juncture, that’s more than fair. Pitt has had back-to-back 20-win seasons, but of course this past year ended abruptly after being left out of the NCAA Tournament.

There should be urgency for this team to not even be in that conversation this year and make the tournament comfortably. The talent is in place for that to happen, but as it has been discussed several times already, the biggest question will be how the lineup comes together.

Capel has many different options on how he would like to play. He can play a deep bench, or keep things focused on a main set of players. There is the option to go big, small, or have balance in the starting. He can use three guards, or he can have three guys 6-10 or taller on the court at the same time. The options are aplenty, but the next step is finding how they work together.

Most of the team has been on campus already going spring workouts, and the rest of the roster should be joining them in Pittsburgh later in June. From there, things can start to develop, but a lot of this team’s success will hinge on its returning players.

Pitt’s lacked an identity in its four seasons under Jeff Capel and with clashing personalities, it made it almost impossible for a good culture to take root. It all changed two years ago and I think we saw some continuity into last season, and it should carry into this year.

Blake Hinson bridged the two teams, and his experience from the 2023 NCAA Tournament run certainly carried into this past season. Players like the Diaz Graham twins know how Capel wants things, and returnees like Jaland Lowe and Ishmael Leggett should help carry that torch into next season.

Pitt has been going in one direction the past two seasons, whereas the first four years the team looked disjointed with varying motivations by its star players. I think that’s going to be key when you have a roster like this where multiple players are all capable of starting, and possibly, averaging double figures in scoring.

Lowe and Leggett should be the anchors of the backcourt, but Houston transfer Damian Dunn adds a bigger body, veteran presence, and a hunger to return to form. He was a big-time scorer, but took a lesser role playing for a top-5 Houston team last season. Dunn is certainly coming in with the mindset of helping the team, but wanting to showcase his scoring abilities once again. I think there is a world where all three of these guys start, but at a minimum of two.

Zack Austin started nearly every game a season ago, and figures to have another big role, but could see himself shifted to a bench spot depending on how the rest of the lineup take shape. Amsal Delalic, the surprise splash addition from Bosnia, is coming to Pittsburgh with the mindset of getting to the NBA. You would have to think he is eyeing big minutes and opportunities to score.

Guillermo Diaz Graham has been showing flashes for two seasons, and it may be hard to continue to bring him off the bench. His shooting touch is very unique for someone his size, and is arguably Pitt’s best outside threat on the team. Cam Corhen did not transfer from Florida State to come off the bench, either.

That’s seven players right there who can make a case to start.

It’s probably down the list of likely options, but Papa Amadou Kante was once a four-star center recruit who is looking to rebound after a season-ending injury last year. Brandin Cummings is a four-star freshman guard who just saw two players that fit his description have a lot of success last season. Not to mention, Jorge Diaz Graham is likely ready to start catching up to his brother as well.

These guys should be hungry, too.

The playing time competition that is about to happen inside the Petersen Events Center for the next five months before the team’s first game in November is going to be pretty fierce. Pitt’s roster is probably set for next season, but the lineup is a totally different story. If I had to make a quick guess at a starting five, it’s probably Lowe, Leggett, Delalic, Guillermo, and Corhen for now, but again, nothing seems certain as of today.

What happens next for Pitt baseball?

I think after just about every baseball season since I’ve been working for Panther-Lair.com, I have the same question: What happens next for this program? I think the answer has always been generally the same.

Pitt is at a disadvantage than its conference mates…

It’s tough to compete as a northern college baseball program…

Mike Bell needs more time…

All of those things remain true. Pitt does not have the same recruiting base as most of the ACC, which hurts them in the talent department significantly. Pitt also does not have the same budget or facilities, which is another knock against the program, and hurts them for the same reasons. Plus the weather thing is real, because Pitt is not really able to play a home game above 50 degrees for half the season, and of course, not having the ability to practice outside isn’t exactly a selling point for prospective recruits, either.

For as powerful as a conference the Big Ten is, you just don’t see its teams really compare to the SEC or ACC in baseball, because of all the same challenges Pitt faces. The best high school players in Pennsylvania are either getting drafted or going to school somewhere warm to play college ball. And unlike in football, it’s not as easy to offset those losses with under-the-radar talent from Florida. In the end, trying to be successful power-five baseball program in the North is kind of a losing battle, and it always has been.

It might have become even trickier in the past week.

The new legislation that was all the talk of college sports last week has ripple effects across all sports. As we know, football and men’s college basketball drives everyone else’s revenue. Now that these colleges have to ‘share’ the revenue with its student athletes, then you start to wonder about the future of certain non-revenue sports.

It’s not just a Pitt issue, but most universities wishing to stay at the highest-level of the college football ladder are going to have to make some hard decisions about the rest of their respective athletic departments. In Pitt’s case, however, baseball is going to be an interesting topic moving forward simply because of the reality of the situation.

Pitt is already lagging behind other ACC schools when it comes to baseball, but what happens when all players on the roster will be on scholarship? Well, that’s part of the new guidelines college sports is adopting. Colleges may put upwards of 30 baseball players on scholarship each year, as opposed to 30 guys splitting 11.8 scholarships, which is the case for now.

It even isn’t all about funding, which adding another 20 scholarships to the mix certainly is not nothing, but this also comes down to a competitive standpoint. Southern schools who will embrace the change for baseball and fully fund 30 scholarships can now flat out offer more good players, simply because they will be able to carry them on the roster. That will no doubt affect the talent tool Pitt has to work with in the future.

There will be long conversations had by many schools about certain programs, but given Pitt’s inability to compete under the current college baseball system may only be enhanced in the future. The Panthers have not been to the NCAA Tournament since 1995 and under current head coach Mike Bell, the team has a 57-96 record against ACC opponents. The gap here is only going to get wider.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt nets 10 commitments in June

Pitt gets recruits in June. However they do it, or whatever you want to call it, but we have seen the official visit wave get rolling in the past, and I really expect nothing different this year. I’m projecting Pitt will net ten commitments in the month of June, which would take the recruiting class to 16 before the start of the season.

I guess that is not a very bold prediction given Pitt’s success at of gaining recruiting momentum in June, but with that madness set to begin, I’m setting the number at 9.5 and taking the over in this one.

Last year, Pat Narduzzi and his staff hosted 39 players for official visits in the month of June and 18 of them ultimately signed with Pitt. An additional five were committed to Pitt at some point as well, but decommitted along the way. But either way, 18 of Pitt’s 21 signed recruits in 2024 took their official visits in June, so needless to say this is a high priority stretch for the coaching staff as they are working with the guys at the very top of their recruiting board.

The first weekend is often the tone setter and Pitt is expected to host some talented defensive prospects like four-star linebacker Ezekiel Marcelin, three-star defensive end Sherrod Henderson, and three-star linebacker Justin Thompson. Offensively, two of Pitt’s top tight end prospects will be in town led by three-star Brody Lennon as well Max Hunt of Florida. That list has yet to be finalized, but that is simply to illustrate there are some players high on Pitt’s wishlist who will be around in less than week.

Recruiting is not an exact science, and it still takes a lot of efforts but past history can at least serve as a case study. Pitt does a lot of damage in June and this year should be more of the same.