The 3-2-1 Column: Quarterback recruiting, transfer portal talk, and more

We are in full offseason mode in the world of Pitt athletics, but there is still plenty to discuss in this week’s 3-2-1 Column. The transfer portal is officially closed for college basketball and Jeff Capel still has two more roster spots to fill, we take a look at where the Panthers can turn next in their offseason roster assembly.

The Pitt football team is also fully invested in recruiting at the moment. The coaching staff has been on the road working on the current class of 2024, while also offering tons of underclassmen prospects as well.

We check in on how their efforts on the recruiting trail as they prepare for the big month of June and we also take an early look at the 2023 schedule for Pat Narduzzi’s team.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Quarterback recruiting takes center stage

We have hit this topic of quarterback recruiting hard this week at Panther-Lair.com, but this is an important one…or is it? The Panthers have yet to land a quarterback in the class of 2024, but the effort is being put forth to make that happen with some recent developments.

Pitt offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr. is out on the road evaluating some of the players currently with an offer, and he has also been issuing some news ones as well. The first news on that front was an offer that went out earlier this week and that was to Massachusetts native Miles O’Neill. The big 6’5” and 220-pound quarterback was not attracting much attention at his current high school, so he is planning to play for the prestigious Hun School in New Jersey this year. The move has precipitated an almost instant spike in his recruitment as Pitt was one of five power-five schools to issue him an offer in recent days.

O’Neill is a very intriguing prospect because of his physical attributes and arm strength, but also because of who his new coach is at The Hun School. Tony Racioppi is a renowned quarterback trainer who has gained a considerable amount of credibility in the past couple of years after working with Kenny Pickett. He now works with NFL, college, and top level high school prospects and has planted a good seed in O’Neill’s ear about the Panthers.

“He told me it’s a great program,” O’Neill said of Racioppi’s message about Pitt. “I’m excited to get down there. I love the coach that came to see me and I can’t wait to meet the rest of the coaching staff and go from there.”

O’Neill is a newer name to the mix, but he joins a group of solid quarterback prospects the Panthers are already working on in this cycle. Henry Hasselbeck, another Massachusetts native, is expected to come to Pitt later this month and possibly return for an official visit in June. Drew Devillier is an intriguing prospect as he is a 6’6” prospect who is actually committed to TCU for baseball as a pitcher. The Pitt coaches are watching him closely and he is also expected to come check out Pittsburgh sometime this month.

In addition to those prospects, I think Sam Kaiser, Trever Jackson, and recent Georgia Tech de-commit Jahkari Williams are names worth monitoring in the next few weeks as well. So again, Cignetti is not short on options as he does his final evaluations.

Quarterback recruiting has always been a little different than other positions for a variety of reasons, but there is also a new wrinkle that has been added to the mix, and it’s something Chris Peak and I discussed on the Panther-Lair.com podcast this week.

How important is it to land a high school quarterback every year? Is it being devalued in some regards? I think there is a case to be made that it has been less of a priority, or at the very least that has been Pitt’s approach lately.

Pitt started Nathan Peterman in 2016, a transfer from Tennessee. The Panthers went into the 2017 season with USC transfer Max Browne winning the starting job our of camp. Of course, homegrown Kenny Pickett held down the fort from 2018-2021, but the Panthers then turned to Kedon Slovis from USC in 2022 and will be rolling with former Boston College starter Phil Jurkovec this season. Looking into the future it’s very likely Penn State transfer Christian Veilleux will be taking the reigns next season.

That is…a lot of transfers at the most important position on the field.

There is the potential that five of six quarterbacks at Pitt will have started their careers elsewhere before assuming the starting job at Pitt. That’s not even taking into consideration that the Panthers have even looked for transfers to be reserves like with Joey Yellen and most recently Derek Kyler.

All of this is not a blip on the radar or a coincidence in my opinion, but rather a pretty clear trend we are seeing from the Pitt coaches over the course of multiple seasons now. I think the fact that Pat Narduzzi is entering his ninth season and he is on his fifth offensive coordinator already has played a hand in the lack of development for internal quarterbacks and their approach to recruiting overall.

I am still under the belief that every school should add a quarterback in every recruiting class and see what you can come up with from year to year. I can also see the benefits of this current approach Pitt seems to be taking as well, especially in the case of Veilluex, a player with multiple years, and not so much like a one year rental like Jurkovec.

Having said all of that, we have a pretty clear list of candidates that Pitt is pursuing as far as 2024 quarterbacks are concerned. The Panthers will sign a quarterback in this class, but I’m also seeing a world where that might not be the norm in the future given the wild world of the transfer portal.

Football adds another in the class of 2024

Pat Narduzzi and his staff picked up the 11th member their 2024 recruiting class late last week as three-star linebacker Davin Brewton committed to the Panthers. Brewton is a 6’1” and 205-pound prospect out of Red Bank Catholic in New Jersey. He chose Pitt over offers from Maryland, Northwestern, Syracuse, and West Virginia.

Brewton was a prospect the Panthers have eyed for a while, and his recruitment took on a pretty straightforward path that led to his decision. He was offered by Pitt in October, visited in November for a game and came back in January for a junior day. Brewton set his official visit for June, but couldn’t wait until then to make his decision and opted to commit to the Panthers last week.

“We were talking about Pitt and how they have everything for me and how great the coaches are and how I fit the defensive scheme,” Brewton told Panther-Lair.com after his decision. “We were looking at each other and they were like, ‘This is your number-one school, so why wait? You’re stupid if you don’t take this right here.’ So I said, ‘Let’s do this and be a part of the Panther nation.’”

Brewton made quick work of his decision, but given the Panthers unprecedented run of commitments this early in the process, can you blame him? Ever since the NCAA shifted the recruiting calendar and allowed prospects to take official visits in June, the Panthers have done most of their damage during that month when it comes to recruiting, but they are very much ahead of the game presently, at least compared to where things usually stand.

Brewton’s commitment gives the Panthers 11 for now, and he is part of a recruiting class that is currently ranked top 20 in the nation. For context, Pitt only had two recruits at this time last year and four in the class of 2022. The Panthers simply have not fared very well early on in the process before, but have bucked that trend this year.

It is hard to exactly pinpoint why this change has happened. Could it be the elusive ‘recruiting bump’ from winning the ACC? Are prospects deciding sooner because of how crazy the transfer portal has made things? Or maybe Pitt is just being a little more aggressive in pushing for commitments.

Truthfully, it could simply be a combination of all those things.

Brewton is a solid add for the Panthers. He is an athletic linebacker who fits the profile of their defense and is also from a pipeline state like New Jersey, and most importantly he is genuinely excited about playing for Pitt.

Pitt is off to a very, very good start for the class of 2024, but given the complexity of recruiting in this day and age, there will be a few twists and turns before signing day. It is just inevitable these days, and you almost have to factor all of the extra stuff into the equation.

Pitt will still host a large number of visitors next month. They will likely see some decommitments from their current set of recruits, and there will be new offers handed out by the staff. So despite this excellent start and being ahead of the game commitment wise, I don’t expect June to look much different than it has been. It will still be hectic and action packed with tons of visitors and commitments, which adds some excitement in the summer months.

Basketball resets the board

The Pitt basketball team has been carrying a lot of positive momentum around for much of the past year. The Panthers broke through and finally made the NCAA Tournament back in March, they’ve signed three highly-regarded high school recruits, and managed to lock down two solid pieces in the transfer portal to bolster the roster heading into next season.

Pitt’s offseason has mostly been productive and accurate if nothing else. They brought in Zack Austin and Ishmael Leggett for visits earlier this spring. The two players were highly productive standouts in smaller conferences for the past couple of seasons and they came to Pitt for visits, and both made their commitments relatively soon after their respective trips to Pittsburgh.

Pitt hosted a third potential impact transfer over the weekend in Noah Thomasson. The 6’3” guard who starred for Niagara was a pretty highly-regarded player after averaging 19.5 points per game last season for the Purple Eagles. The Panthers seemed to have good footing for a while in this recruitment as they got to host Thomasson for his final visit, but while he was in Oakland over the weekend whispers started to swirl he was favoring the University of Georgia. Sure enough, Thomasson committed to the Bulldogs earlier this week, which ended Pitt’s 1.000% batting average on hosting and landing transfers this offseason.

There is no doubt adding another veteran guard capable of scoring to this roster would have been a boost, but Thomasson committed elsewhere and the Panthers still have two spots to fill. Technically Pitt could be looking for three spots if Blake Hinson remains in the NBA Draft process, but given that he was not invited to the combine it is becoming more and more likely Pitt’s leading scorer will be back next season.

So where does Jeff Capel go from here?

I think that’s an important question, but the bigger one is, where can he go from here? The NCAA transfer portal ‘closed’ on May 11th technically, so the players who are in the portal (there are still plenty) are the ones in there. Nobody new is going to be in there from this point moving forward, but that doesn’t mean the portal is short on providing options.

The college basketball offseason has gotten crazier by the year, and while Pitt has two spots to fill, this whole thing can go on into the summer months for sure. Even looking back in past seasons for this program, Pitt has been opportunistic late in the recruiting process. Nike Sibande committed to Pitt in June a few years back, and the Panthers landed June commitments from Dior Johnson and Cashius McNeilly last year. So while the portal is closed, the ability to add talent is still very much in play.

We are going off of what we noticed on Twitter for the past two months, but by our count Pitt reached out to around 30 players from the transfer portal this offseason, and compared to some other schools, that really isn’t a high number. Arkansas seemingly made contact with just about every player who entered the portal over the past 60 days. Some of the players Pitt reached out to were more serious pursuits than others, and now the board sort of has to take form again for Jeff Capel.

Pitt reportedly has made recent contact with a trio of guards: Andrew Taylor from Marshall, Jesse Zarzuela from Central Michigan, along with Georgia Tech transfer Deivon Smith. There will be more names Pitt will reach out to in the coming days I’m sure, but I also wonder how much Pitt can realistically add at this point from a high impact standpoint.

If we look at the 11 players set to be on the roster for next season, you can reasonably make a pretty solid starting lineup with a blend of returning stars, transfer portal additions, and a quartet of players with freshmen eligibility. The Panthers have size with Federiko Federiko and the Diaz Graham twins. There are talented forwards like Hinson and Austin, and a backcourt with Leggett and some promising freshmen like Johnson, Jaland Lowe, and Carlton Carrington.

If we’re being completely honest, Capel and his staff probably can piece together not only a strong starting five, but a rotation they can comfortably go maybe as high as nine or ten deep. With that in mind, Pitt is probably looking for some pieces that can enhance the roster more than players who will come in and be starters from day one.

The name of college basketball lately has been all about outside shooting, and while Leggett and Austin are capable of shooting three-pointers, neither qualifies as a lock-down marksman. The Panthers have yet to find a player who can effectively take Greg Elliott’s role. I think that will be an area of emphasis, but shooters are always a hot commodity, and the competition to land any player who fits that profile will be fierce.

The Panthers probably could use an extra body inside as well because none of the five newcomers set to join the program this point are taller than 6’6”. Pitt struggled in the rebounding department last year, and adding someone who could provide a few minutes and five extra fouls each game beyond the young post players would be a bonus.

Pitt has landed players out of the portal in June before like Sibande. They have also looked to the junior college ranks like they did with Federiko last year, and of course Dior Johnson, a highly rated high school star, sort of fell into their laps pretty late. There are plenty of avenues Pitt can explore as they try to put the finishing touches on next year’s team.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Will Pitt go over 6.5 wins?

I am (hypothetically!) giving you all a crisp $100 bill and you can only use it to bet on one thing and one thing only, and that is win total for the Pitt Panthers in the 2023 college football season.

While we still have an entire summer before Pitt will play its first game against Wofford on September 2nd, BetOnline.ag put out some over/under bets on total win totals for college football programs last week and they set that number for the 2023 Panthers at 6.5 wins.

Looking at that number from a historical perspective, current head coach Pat Narduzzi has failed to reach seven regular season wins twice in his eight-year tenure, the first of which was the rebuilding year of 2017 where the Panthers went 5-7. The second instance happened in the interrupted COVID year of 2020, where Pitt posted a 6-5 record and played one less contest than the standard 12-game regular season.

As for more recent history, Pitt has averaged 10 wins over the past two seasons, which has been the best stretch for this program in quite some time. The Panthers have also been one of the more consistent programs in the ACC after Clemson since Narduzzi’s arrival.

Looking at the 6.5 number, it definitely makes sense when browsing the roster and also what the team lost this offseason. The Panthers lost their leading passer, rusher, and receiver off of the 2022 team. Pitt also had four significant players from its defense get drafted last month as well. There will be new names on the roster and playing in elevated roles, so from an outside perspective I can understand setting the win total low.

The schedule also presents some challenges for the Panthers and that has been a recurring theme for this program. Pitt only really has one ‘gimme’ of a non-conference game in Wofford, but they will face a pair of Big 12 opponents in Cincinnati and West Virginia, along with a trip to South Bend to take on Notre Dame.

There are also some difficult stretches along the way, like a September run that features trips to West Virginia and Virginia Tech split down the middle with a home game against North Carolina. Later on in the year, the back-to-back-to-back stretch of Wake Forest and Notre Dame on the road before a big home game against Florida State will also be quite challenging.

Given the talent lost and the schedule facing the Panthers, I would say the 6.5 total makes sense. If I were a betting man, however, I would consider taking the over in this particular instance. I think there are plenty of question marks heading into this year, most notably on offense and again particularly with the passing game, but I really do think this program is at the point that they can somewhat rely on their defense annually.

This defensive group might not be as talented as past years, but at the end of the season they’ll probably have a bunch of sacks, be near the top of rushing defense, have a good third-down percentage, and will have generated a fair amount of turnovers.

They kind of do what they can do.

The story of this 2023 Pitt football team hinges squarely on Phil Jurkovec regaining his 2020 form and him having enough playmakers to make the offense competent in the passing game.

That’s it, at least for me and my wager on this win total.

I think Pitt can probably get to 8-4 in 2023 with relative competent quarterback play, and could surprise and win one or two more if Jurkovec plays really well. I’m still skeptical of all of that actually happening after seeing what unfolded with last year’s team with Kedon Slovis. However, I also think the last two years showed the program has been built to a point where they generally have a well-stocked roster and can pe pretty good provided the quarterback play is there.

Pitt probably doesn’t get the credit it deserves for being the most consistent program in the ACC after Clemson over the past few years. I don’t really see a 6-6 year coming despite the losses and questions marks surrounding this team entering the 2023 season.

I’m taking the over on 6.5, how about you?

Is there reason to be concerned about some head coaching hires at Pitt?

Pitt made a change last week with its softball program as the Panthers let head coach Jodi Hermanek go after she posted a 76-134 overall record and a 29-82 mark in ACC play, finishing with a losing record in all five seasons during her tenure in Oakland.

Hermanek’s firing was the most recent one within the Pitt athletic department this school year. Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke has also made changes with the women’s basketball program, which proved to be a disaster under Lance White, and also relieved Samantha Snider of her duties as head coach of gymnastics.

Lyke had made wholesale changes before in the athletic department, but that was in the immediate aftermath of her arrival to Pittsburgh. It needs to be noted that all three recently let go Pitt head coaches this year were all hired and then subsequently by Lyke herself.

Every situation is unique from team to team within Pitt’s own athletic department, but I don’t know if it is exactly a great thing that we’re watching the second round of hires for this many sports all at once, and there is a case that men’s basketball was heading in this direction prior to this past season before Jeff Capel finally delivered an NCAA Tournament berth.

There is a caveat to all of this, because I also can’t recall a single point in my lifetime where Pitt athletics was this strong from an overall perspective. It’s a very unique balance.

I think the uniform and branding update under Lyke was an obvious, but a smart and well-received move. It just seems the athletic department moves as one right now, because prior to her arrival Pitt had a good basketball program, some OK seasons in football, and a whole lot of dead weight in the athletic department behind those two sports.

There have been some necessary facility updates throughout campus. There are also some more ambitious facility uodates on the way, though I wonder about the funding of said projects, but that’s a topic for a different day.

As a whole, Pitt is in a pretty good spot, or at least a better place than it has been for its entire athletic department. Pitt football is probably in the best shape it has been since the 1980s. Women’s volleyball and men’s soccer have been legitimate national championship contenders for a few years running, and that looks to be sustainable.

Pat Narduzzi, Dan Fisher, and Jay Vidovich are the head coaches for those three programs and the three best at Pitt right now, but the common theme with that trio is that none of them were hired by the current athletic director.

Do head coaching hires mean everything for an AD? OF course not. As long as football is heading in the right direction, basketball is making noise, and there are few teams to augment the two big ones and be competitive, that’s generally all most schools are looking for with its sports programs. Lyke is steering the ship better than most athletic directors in Pitt history from that particular vantage point.

Pitt is accomplishing most of the main things at the moment, and despite these recent layoffs, some of Lyke’s hires have been pretty big hits. Randy Waldrum guided the women’s soccer team to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history back in the fall. The wrestling team under Keith Gavin just produced an individual national champion. I think despite the rough season they are currently having, Mike Bell has done some good things with Pitt Baseball, because that is one of the more difficult jobs in all of the power-five conferences. And then there is Capel who really stopped on a dime and changed the fortunes of his tenure this past year.

It’s a mixed bag right now for Pitt. It’s pretty clear the overall product of Pitt athletics is clicking better than ever, but it’s hard to ignore some of these failed coaching hires at the same time.

ONE PREDICTION

A guess at a starting five for 2023-24

Given the lack of news around the basketball team at the moment, I spent a bit more time talking Pitt hoops then I expected to this week. After sort of examining what this roster still needs, I also got a better sense of what they have as well.

Pitt, at least on paper, appears to have a deeper roster than it has had in the past couple of seasons. The Panthers were basically down to seven usable players in the NCAA Tournament, and I don’t think that will be the case for this upcoming year. While they will miss having stalwarts like Jamarius Burton and Nelly Cummings on the floor, I think the overall depth will certainly be better and it remains to be seen how that translates to the win/loss column. I’ll just lay it out plainly, here is what I think Pitt’s best starting five will be for the upcoming season:

PG) Dior Johnson

SG) Ishamel Leggett

SF) Zack Austin

PF) Blake Hinson

C) Guillermo Diaz Graham

Johnson will likely be the point guard, but I don’t expect Jaland Lowe to go down without a fight for the starting job, either. The two should compliment one another and in certain situations will play alongside each other in others. I think Leggett will join him as a starter in the backcourt, and he should have enough playmaking ability to be able to run the offense as well.

In today's college basketball there is not much of a difference between what a small forward and a power forward does offensively, it’s obviously more about who you can defend. I think adding Zack Austin can do enough defensively to defend on the perimeter and allow Blake Hinson to sort of continue to do his thing.

The big shake up here is obviously Guillermo Diaz Graham passing Federiko in the starting five. Federiko started 27 games last season and fit exactly what the team needed from the five position last season: rim running, energy, and defense. However, when Diaz Graham took over for him in March, it became painfully obvious he’s the better longterm option. Diaz Graham is a better offensive threat both inside and with the ability to knock down shots from the perimeter. Guillermo is also better rebounder and even a shot blocker with more upside.

I think there is a pretty good chance how the lineup will look in November for this team, but again we’ll see if any further additions are made, or someone surprises off the bench, and again it’s May, there is a long way to go before the balls start bouncing in the Petersen Events Center.