The 3-2-1 Column: QBs past, present and future, recruiting and more

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In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about quarterbacks past, present and future, recruiting and more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

2017 was a weird year for quarterbacks
After many years of relative peace, 2017 was a weird year for quarterbacks at Pitt.

Really, the most important position on the field had been one of stability for the Panthers for nearly a decade. There was the chaos of 2007, when Bill Stull suffered a season-ending thumb injury in the opener, leading to a couple weeks of struggle for Kevan Smith before he eventually gave way to true freshman Pat Bostick, who didn’t exactly light the world on fire.

But since then, things had been pretty quiet and pretty stable. Stull missed one game in 2008 - the Bostick-led four-overtime win at Notre Dame - but none in 2009. Tino Sunseri was in place for every game from 2010-12, despite some valiant efforts by Todd Graham to replace him throughout the 2011 season.

Tom Savage took a beating in 2013 but didn’t miss any significant time until the bowl game, when he was replaced by Chad Voytik at halftime. Voytik was in place throughout 2014 and started the first two games of 2015 before Nate Peterman took over and started the final 11 plus the entirety of the 2016 season.

Even predating Stull in the 2007 season, Pitt had a long run of stability at quarterback, propped up by five years of Rod Rutherford and Tyler Palko. So if you go back to Rutherford’s first year as a starter in 2002, you have just one year out of 15 when the quarterback position was legitimately volatile. It wasn’t always great, but it was stable.

Until last season, when all hell more or less broke loose. From the delayed decision on a starter (which Max Browne told me caused some tension) to early-season swapping to a season-ending injury to more swapping to a full-on switch to a freshman making it all worthwhile with an inspiring performance; 2017 will likely live in legend - or infamy - as one of the stranger seasons we’ve seen on the quarterback front at Pitt.

The what-ifs are interesting
Pitt came out of the 2017 season with a set starter in Kenny Pickett. That much is certain, and Pickett is responsible for a whole lot of the optimism that exists around the team this offseason.

But the other three scholarship quarterbacks on the 2017 roster are going to have their own place in Pitt lore, largely because you can and will play the what-if game with each of them.

Browne is the easiest one, because it will exist entirely in the realm of the hypothetical: “What if he didn’t get hurt at Syracuse?” is an interesting question to ponder, because even though him staying healthy would have likely kept Pickett on the sidelines throughout the season, he seemed to be on a good trajectory when he got hurt.

Browne lit up Rice the way a good quarterback should light up Rice. And while he wasn’t perfect in the Carrier Dome, he seemed to be getting better as the game went on. It’s not unreasonable to think he could have continued to improve, nor is it crazy to believe that his continued improvement would have given Pitt a better chance of winning just about every game the Panthers lost in the season half of the season.

That’s not hyperbole. Pitt didn’t get blown out by Syracuse, North Carolina or Virginia Tech; a more effective passing attack could well have turned the tide in those games and given the Panthers the few extra points they needed for victory. Who knows if Browne could have beaten Miami - the defense still would have played well, but Pickett made some really key plays on his own that Browne might have been capable of making - but if you swap the Miami win to a loss and two of Syracuse, UNC and VT to a win (we’ll say two so that we’re not pushing it too far, but I think there would have been a good chance of beating all three of those teams), Pitt would have been 6-6 and bowling.

Not a great record, but still playing in the postseason. Which is worth something.

The other two non-Pickett quarterbacks are a little more interesting, and their names will probably pop up on the message boards semi-frequently over the next year or two. Ben DiNucci went to James Madison as a walk-on and emerged from spring camp in a dead heat for the starting job. Thomas MacVittie opted to go the JUCO route, enrolling at Mesa Community College in Arizona; he will spend a season there before trying to find a new D-I home.

Inevitably, if DiNucci and/or MacVittie plays well at their new destinations, it’s going to get noticed. And that’s especially true of MacVittie; Pitt fans had more or less had their fill of DiNucci, but MacVittie was an unknown. His only playing time at Pitt came on special teams - the punt coverage unit - and he never took a snap at quarterback in a game. But there was excitement over his size, arm strength and mobility, and if he turns this year of JUCO into a starting job at a Power Five school…

There are three top targets at this point
Looking at the next Pitt quarterbacks, the Panthers obviously have Pickett, Ricky Town and incoming freshman Nick Patti for 2018 and they’ll add to that group with the 2019 class. So who will fill that spot?

There are three main targets at this point: Davis Beville, Connor Bazelak and Zach Calzada. They were offered in that order and it looks like Shawn Watson has that order of preference, as well. He has been working on Beville the longest and has told Beville he is the number-one target.

That’s not to say Watson doesn’t like Bazelak and Calzada. Bazelak visited this spring and Calzada just got his offer last week. I think there’s a good chance that Pitt will get all three quarterbacks on campus for a visit in the next six weeks, but when it comes time to commit, Beville is probably the most likely option.

The key, of course, is to get a top target. Even if the staff is high on Pickett (which they are) and Patti (which they are), you still need to add a quality quarterback every year. While Pat Narduzzi and his staff have rebuilt the quarterback ranks pretty well, adding three transfers in addition to some quality high-schoolers, the pursuit of quarterbacks is pretty much a never-ending quest. You really do need one every year.

Ideally, the one you get will be one you wanted for awhile. But even if you miss on some targets and have to go after new options, it doesn’t spell certain doom. Remember, Pitt offered 11 other quarterbacks before Pickett in the class of 2017, missing on targets like Matt McKay (N.C. State) and Hendon Hooker (Virginia Tech) before pulling the trigger on an offer.

Missing on the top target - in the case of the 2019 class, Beville - doesn’t mean it will be impossible to get a quality quarterback (Bazelak and Calzada would do just fine). But Watson, like Hannibal Smith, would love it if this particular plan came together so Pitt could be settled with quarterbacks for the 2019 class.

One thing Watson could do in the meantime, though, is get some more names on the board from the 2020 class. Pitt has offered two quarterbacks from that group so far - Michael Alaimo and Evan Prater - but there are other options he could pursue. There are three quarterbacks in the 2020 class from Pennsylvania who hold offers, three from Michigan and five from Ohio; Watson is no doubt aware of those recruits, and it will be interesting to see if/when he moves on offering some of them (or the handful of quarterbacks from Georgia who are in the early top 100).

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Who cares about Penn State?
Okay. I know. Everyone cares about Penn State. And for good reason: Penn State is Pitt’s most hated rival and the closest thing Pitt has to one of the great, longstanding rivalries in college football (that goes for Penn State, too).

But at a certain point, I think Pitt fans stopped getting too bent out of shape about Penn State not wanting to continue the series. This week, we had example No. 1,052 of that lack of interest from State College when PSU Athletic Director Sandy Barbour said the Nittany Lions probably wouldn’t be able to get Pitt back on the schedule until 2030.

The current series, as we know, ends with next year’s game in Happy Valley. But when Barbour made that announcement, the reaction from Pitt fans, as far as I could tell, was mostly some iteration of “Meh.”

Make no mistake about it: Pitt fans would love to play Penn State annually. Pitt administration would love to have those games. And Pitt coaches want them, too. But I really believe that nobody is losing sleep about this. There is disappointment, but I don’t think there’s any teeth-gnashing or clenched fists.

“If they don’t want to play, fine.” That seems to be the sentiment. And that’s what it should be. Playing Penn State is great. Pitt should play Penn State. But if that’s not going to happen, I think Pitt fans are perfectly fine with setting up an extended series against West Virginia or exploring other options that exist in the wide world of college football.

The most important thing Heather Lyke can do with Pitt’s scheduling is to get opponents who will draw big crowds. That’s the No. 1 goal. The No. 2 goal is getting opponents who should be wins for the Panthers. Those are the priorities: get attendance numbers or get win numbers - every non-conference opponent should accomplish at least one of those goals (this isn’t to say you can’t or shouldn’t expect to win the games against big draws; ideally, you’d accomplish both goals with the same games).

Now that Penn State is officially out for the foreseeable future, Lyke can move on to finding attractive non-conference opponents for the next decade. And she probably already has.

Is Pitt putting its emphasis in the right place?
I found myself in a curious situation at the Rivals 3 Stripe Camp presented by Adidas in Columbus on Sunday. There were roughly 200 kids there, representing mostly Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan - prime Pitt recruiting territory. And yet the vast majority of recruits with Pitt offers weren’t from Pennsylvania. Nor were they from Ohio.

They were from Michigan. Part of that was due to location; Columbus is good for western Pa. kids but not the rest of the state, and Ohio kids, as I was told on Sunday, “just don’t camp.” But still, the emphasis on Michigan is a part of the bigger storyline in the 2019 class, as the coaching staff has worked extensively outside the home commonwealth.

To wit, we list 19 recruits from Pennsylvania in the class of 2019 with offers from Pitt, 26 from Ohio and 16 from Michigan. Pitt has more offers out in Georgia and New Jersey than it has in Pennsylvania. And that says nothing of the offers out in Florida (80 and counting, which seems astronomical until you consider that Pitt offered 87 last year).

So what do we make of those numbers? Part of it - maybe the biggest part - has to be the talent and where the talent is. In last year’s recruiting class, 32 kids from Pennsylvania signed with Power Five schools. That compares favorably with Ohio (who had 40 sign with P5’s) and Michigan (24). But Florida had 184 and Georgia had 130.

2017 was similar: Pennsylvania (28), Ohio (49) and Michigan (27) combined to have 104 recruits sign with Power Five schools. Georgia alone had 131. Florida had 190.

You have to go where the talent is, which means recruiting the kids who are close and then being opportunistic with those who aren’t. That’s not to say that Pitt is de-emphasizing Pennsylvania; rather, they are extra-emphasizing Florida and Georgia, in particular, and Michigan and Ohio to a certain degree.

The next step, of course, is landing some of these kids. Pitt has gotten results from the efforts in Florida (15 recruits signed in the last three classes), but Georgia and Michigan haven’t produced as much. The Panthers offered 46 recruits from Georgia and 27 from Michigan in the 2016, 2017 and 2018 classes and signed zero of those 73 prospects.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt will break that shutout streak in Michigan this year
(Probably Georgia, too, but that’s another story.)

Pitt has 18 offers out in Michigan for the class of 2019 so far, which puts the four-year total at 45 in that state. In the last three years, the Panthers have come home empty, but I think that 0-for-27 streak under Pat Narduzzi will end with this class.

The reason for the optimism?

Archie Collins.

Good recruiters - the really good ones - are able to connect with recruits on a personal level and form a strong relationship that becomes a dominant factor in a prospect’s recruitment. All the other factors - academics, program success, atmosphere, campus life, etc. - matter, but the really good recruiters can make their relationship with the recruits the dominant factor.

That’s what Jeff Capel did at Duke. When he was hired and we asked people what made him such a good recruiter, the answer was that he connected with the recruits on a personal level. We’ve already seen that pay dividends, like when Trey McGowens committed before he even stepped on campus (McGowens was so sold on Capel that he committed early so he could sell other recruits on Capel), and we’re seeing more recruits talk about how well he connects.

Archie Collins hasn’t produced those results yet - he’s still working on his first commitment, so he’s a few steps behind Capel - but we’re hearing a lot of the same reactions from recruits. Collins came to Pitt from Central Michigan with a reputation as a strong recruiter, and the prospects he’s targeting at Pitt seem to be buying in.

You know how I said there were a lot of Pitt-offered recruits from Michigan at that camp in Columbus? I talked to most of them, and they all said the same thing: “Coach Archie” is their main recruiter and a big part of the reason they are interested in Pitt.

Of course, it helps that Collins went to Cass Tech when he’s recruiting Technicians like Jalen Graham and Lew Nichols and Ormondell Dingle. But even the guys who don’t go to Cass still had a lot of positive things to say.

I don’t always get the prediction section of these columns right, and recruiting is certainly an inexact science, but I’ll be pretty surprised if Collins doesn’t pull at least one and possibly three or four recruits from Michigan this year.