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The 3-2-1 Column: Seniors, Virginia Tech, uncertainty and more

In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about Virginia Tech, seniors returning and a bunch of things we don’t know.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Uncertainty
Change of pace here, as this first entry in the “Three Things We Know” section would probably be better titled as “One Thing We Don’t Know.” And what we don’t know is what tomorrow will bring.

We all learned a lesson last week, I think. The season was humming along, everything was going according to plan (save for the results on the field in a few of the games) and I - maybe you, too - almost forgot that the pandemic we’re shuffling through can still wreak some havoc on your college football weekend plans.

I mean, I saw games across the country get canceled or postponed, and while I didn’t entirely have the mindset of “It can’t happen here”…well, I kind of did have that mindset.

The thing is, Pitt had done so well. Eight games over nine weeks and only 11 players had to be absent due to COVID protocols. Seven of those 11 were in the first game and three were in the second; then the Panthers had a run of five games with no players absent.

That’s really successful - probably about as successful as any college football team is going to be over that long of a timespan. And as the weeks kept rolling by without any issues, without any cancellations or postponements, I became convinced - subconsciously, perhaps - that Pitt was above the fray.

COVID wasn’t going to strike this team. The players and coaches understood what they needed to do to keep the season going. They knew their duties and responsibilities, and they were taking them seriously. Hence, no issues.

And then last week came rolling in and smacked us all in the face.

Now, a week later, we’re facing more uncertainty. Saturday’s game against Virginia Tech is still set to go on as scheduled, but postponing one game doesn’t alleviate all the issues when you’re talking about a contagious virus.

Sure, they called off last Saturday’s game against Georgia Tech, but that doesn’t mean Pitt’s players and coaches walked into the facility on Monday and everything was good to go.

On the contrary, things are very much not good to go. I mean, I don’t think they are. This week has been full of uncertainty for the Pitt coaches and players, as questions surround the lead-up to Saturday:

Will the Virginia Tech game even be played? And if it is, who will actually be available to take the field?

I think the Pitt football program has been dealing with those questions all week, and they’ve been dealing with the frustration of not having answers to those questions, simply because some of those questions won’t be answered and can’t be answered until late in the week. Remember, the Georgia Tech game went on ice last Thursday afternoon, and I don’t think that was a case of the two schools sitting on the news for a couple days.

So we’re starting this week’s column not with something we know, but rather the things we don’t know. Most importantly, we don’t know which players will be out on Saturday. There will be some. There could be a significant number. And Pitt’s starting lineup will almost certainly be affected.

Which players are out and how that impacts the game will be among the top storylines.

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The Virginia Tech rivalry
There’s something about Virginia Tech.

The Hokies aren’t Pitt’s most commonly-played opponent over the last 130 years. They’re not even in the top 15. Saturday’s game will be the Panthers’ 20th all-time matchup with Virginia Tech, and while 20 is a significant number, it falls short of the 24 games Pitt has played against Nebraska or Duke, the 25 games Pitt has played against Ohio State and the 40 games Pitt has played against Miami, to name a few.

Pitt has faced Army (27 games), Carnegie Tech (30 games) and William & Jefferson (33 games) more than it has faced Virginia Tech, and that’s to say nothing of the Panthers’ top four most common opponents: 72 games against Notre Dame, 76 against Syracuse, 100 against Penn State and 104 against West Virginia.

The Hokies are behind all of those teams in their history against Pitt, and yet…there’s something about Virginia Tech.

I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s a rivalry between these two programs. I actually don’t even know what it looks like from the Blacksburg side of things, but these games always seem to have a little something extra.

The series started when Pitt joined the Big East in 1993, and Virginia Tech won the first four games against the Panthers as conference foes before Walt Harris started doing this thing where he kind of owned the Hokies.

Okay, history might not back up that claim, but it feels that way. Harris beat Virginia Tech in his first year at Pitt and then lost to the Hokies three years in a row, but the ownage truly started in 2001. That year, Virginia Tech was 6-1 and ranked No. 12 when it came to Heinz Field and got blown out 38-7 by a Pitt team that had two wins to its name prior to that game.

The next year was even bigger. In fact, it was one of Pitt’s biggest wins of the 21st century. The Panthers went to Blacksburg in early November of 2002 with a 5-2 record to face the Hokies, who were 8-0 and ranked No. 3 in the nation. Pitt overcame a 14-point deficit in the third quarter to come back for an upset victory.

Harris completed the trilogy in 2003 when Virginia Tech made its last trip to Heinz Field as members of the Big East. For the third year in a row, the Hokies were ranked when they faced Pitt - this time they were No. 5 - and for the third year in a row, they lost to the Panthers.

The series went on hiatus after that game as Virginia Tech bolted for the ACC, a move that Pitt would also make 10 years later. A year before the Panthers started playing in the ACC, though, the Hokies made another trip to Heinz Field. In the third week of the 2012 season, VT was ranked No. 13 and getting ready to face a Pitt team that had looked awful in the first two games of the Paul Chryst era.

Instead of the expected rout, though, the Panthers knocked off a ranked Virginia Tech team for the fourth game in a row. That year’s Hokies weren’t very good - case in point: I just used a waiver claim in fantasy football to pick up their quarterback, who is now a tight end for the Washington Football Team - but the trend of four consecutive upsets when Virginia Tech was ranked is certainly one that creates some history.

Like I said, there’s something about Virginia Tech.

Some new juice
I’m breaking the Pitt-Virginia Tech history into two sections of the column because there’s more to discuss and that last section was already kind of long, so let’s fast-forward a little bit.

There wasn’t a whole lot going on between Pitt and Virginia Tech during the Paul Chryst years. Chryst beat Virginia Tech in 2012 when the Hokies weren’t very good and then lost by knockout in Blacksburg in 2013. Chryst’s final game against Virginia Tech was notable because it came after a bye for Pitt; the coaches were looking to break a three-game losing streak, so they retooled the offense into one that made use of Chad Voytik’s running ability, and the result was a 21-16 win over the Hokies.

So that was interesting, but there wasn’t a lot of fire in that stretch of games. There wasn’t much fire in Pat Narduzzi’s first trip to Blacksburg either, if only because the game was nearly canceled due to Hurricane Joaquin. Still, Pitt won that game, which turned out to be the last time the Panthers would face legendary VT head coach Frank Beamer.

But Beamer’s retirement brought Justin Fuente to Blacksburg, and things got interesting again. Virginia Tech handed Pitt a 39-36 loss at Heinz Field in 2016, after which the ACC handed Narduzzi a sizeable fine for his post-game criticism of the officials.

The next year, Pitt was on the doorstep of pulling off a comeback victory at Lane Stadium but got stuffed on four consecutive plays from the 1.

In 2018, the Panthers took out all of their frustrations on the Hokies with a 52-22 drubbing that saw Pitt pound VT into submission with 492 rushing yards. The Hokies repaid the favor last year with a 28-0 shutout in Blacksburg.

This brings us to 2020. I don’t know what to expect from this year’s Pitt-Virginia Tech game, but the history between these two programs indicates that it should have a little something extra in it.

Where does Virginia Tech stand as a “rival” for Pitt? That’s tough to say. Ask Pitt fans, and they’re not going to mention Virginia Tech before they talk about Penn State, West Virginia and Notre Dame. Ask Virginia Tech fans, and they’ll point to Virginia and possibly Miami long before they ever get to Pitt.

And yet, there’s something extra in there. Whether it’s the history of those games in the early 2000’s or the more recent intensity of the Narduzzi-Fuente matchups or just the memories of a lot of close games along the way, these two programs seem to produce contests that get interesting, one way or another.

I guess we’ll see if 2020 is any different. It has been a unique year in every other way - will that apply to Pitt-Virginia Tech as the series plays its 20th contest?

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Which seniors made surprise decisions?
I think we’ve talked about this before, but the topic of seniors returning in 2021 has been popular this week, so let’s dig into it again.

Since the NCAA said that seniors can come back in 2021 for an extra year of eligibility, fans have wondered which players would take advantage of that opportunity. I think there are a lot of factors that will go into each player’s decisions: some will feel like they’ve accomplished enough to position themselves for the NFL; some will see 2021 as a chance to further their opportunities at the next level: some will simply view it as another chance to play college football, which will likely be the last level of organized football they play; and others will decide that it’s time to move on with their post-football careers.

On Thursday, Pat Narduzzi said that 10 seniors will be recognized on Senior Day on Saturday and 10 won’t. While this is all subject to change - what isn’t? - it’s reasonable to assume that the 10 who will be recognized are planning to move on and the 10 who won’t be recognized are planning to come back.

Here are the 10 who are expected to participate in Senior Day (and, by extension, not come back):

Phil Campbell
Damar Hamlin
Bryce Hargrove
Patrick Jones
Alex Kessman
Jimmy Morrissey
Kenny Pickett
Jason Pinnock
DJ Turner
Rashad Weaver

And here are the 10 who are not expected to participate in Senior Day (and, by extension, come back next season):

Cal Adomitis
Keyshon Camp
AJ Davis
Lucas Krull
Taysir Mack
Damarri Mathis
John Petrishen
Chase Pine
Tre Tipton
Jake Zilinskas

I can’t say there are too many surprises on those lists. Weaver and Jones are the best overall players, and I don’t think anyone expected them to come back. Pickett and Morrissey would be huge returns - I personally wanted to see Morrissey become a fifth-year starter; that’s a unique distinction - but I also thought it was unlikely they would choose to return. The same goes for Damar Hamlin; I figured he was probably done with his Pitt career.

Of the guys who decided to stay, I figured Adomitis, Krull, Mathis, Petrishen and Zilinskas would make that choice. Maybe Adomitis can be the five-year starter I wanted to see Morrissey become.

On the flip side, I was a little surprised to see Pinnock decide to go. He hasn’t had a great season, or, at the least, he probably hasn’t played at the level he expected, and it seems like he could probably improve his stock with another season. Then again, he was suspended for the Florida State game, and I imagine he might be looking forward to moving on from college.

I also didn’t know what to expect from guys like Davis or Mack or Pine. No, they didn’t exactly play like NFL prospects this season, but there’s also a decent amount of youth at their positions, and the chance of them getting passed over in 2021 seems fairly significant.

Ultimately, I don’t think there’s any downside for Pitt to have these 10 guys come back. I think Mathis is a huge boost to the secondary and would have played himself into a draft pick if he had been available this season. Adomitis provides stability and reliability at an overlooked position. Camp is a good player who has struggled with staying healthy but has flashed talent when he has been on the field. Krull has a lot of potential at a position where no one has really made an impact in years. Mack has made quite a few plays over the course of his career at Pitt.

And Davis, Petrishen, Pine, Tipton and Zilinskas seem like good teammates and good program guys who will provide experienced depth or more in 2021.

What’s the other impact?
There’s another side to the extra year of eligibility that we should keep in mind as the offseason approaches.

Every senior in the country is getting a free season from the NCAA, and I have to believe a lot of guys will take that opportunity - and use it at a different school.

Now, graduate transfers are already quite prevalent and the numbers have been trending up in recent years. The NCAA said that there were three times as many graduate transfers across all sports in 2019 as there were in 2014; in football alone, the total number of graduate transfers nearly doubled from 2016 to 2019.

So graduate transfers are nothing new, but I think this year is going to be a boom market. You’ll have all the fourth-year players who were already on track to graduate and consider a transfer, but you’ll also have a bunch of fifth-year guys who now have a second chance at playing their last season, and I think you’ll see a lot of them explore their options in the transfer portal.

If this goes the way I think it will, it’s also going to make the whole thing a buyer’s market. There will be a lot of available graduate transfers, and while schools will basically have space for an unlimited number of them since they don’t count against the 85-man scholarship limit, there’s still the matter of finances. Scholarships cost money, so there will only be so many transfers each school can take.

To some extent, it’s almost like there might be more players available than there are spots, which means schools shouldn’t have any trouble filling needs.

What would Pitt be looking for in a graduate transfer for 2021?

Really, I don’t think there are any spots where the Panthers couldn’t use a graduate transfer. That’s not to say that Pitt is weak at every position, but I can’t think of one area where a talented, experienced player wouldn’t be an upgrade or, at the very least, a boost.

It always starts with quarterback, and unless the Pitt coaches think they have four future Heisman Trophy winners on the roster, then a quarterback will always be an option if a good one is available as a one-year rental.

Center is a position to explore, too. Owen Drexel did okay in his start at Boston College, but if a center in the MAC with two or three years of starting experience decides he wants to use his extra year in a Power Five conference, then Pitt should explore that possibility.

You could probably apply that logic to the other spots on the offensive line, too. And who among us would say that Pitt wouldn’t benefit from bolstering the talent at running back, tight end or wide receiver?

On defense, it’s probably more about adding depth than starters, but there’s still plenty to explore. I think the line should be pretty good in 2021, despite losing Weaver and Jones, but it would always be good to add more depth. There’s a strong crop of returning linebackers but not a ton of experience after the top line, so there could be some upgrades there. And in the secondary, Pitt’s going to be breaking in a few new starters, so some veteran presence would be a nice addition.

The Panthers could even look for a kicker, really. There’s nothing that should be off the table. And if it goes the way I expect, there should be plenty of options.

ONE PREDICTION

Someone unexpected will make a significant impact
I mean, how can you predict anything in advance of this game? I’m actually writing this section of the column on Friday morning because there was a lurking concern that the game might not happen at all. And even now, with the game seemingly on track to be played, there’s a whole lot of uncertainty.

Can I really sit here and make a prediction about something in this game when we don’t even know who will be playing?

It’s certainly going to be interesting to see who walks out of the tunnel once the team starts warming up on Saturday afternoon, and it will be even more interesting to see which players get thrust into a primetime role. Because there’s one prediction I can make, and it’s that multiple starters are going to be out for this one.

As such, I think we’re going to see some previously-unsung heroes emerge and finish as top contributors in this game. I don’t know who they will be and I don’t know what they will do, but just like Brandon Hill burst onto the scene two weeks ago at Florida State, I think there will be some stand-up performances from some guys we haven’t seen all that much this season.

I don’t know if anybody will match Hill’s game at FSU, of course. He turned his first career start into a team-leading eight tackles, a forced fumble and a 50-yard pick-six; that’s setting the bar pretty high, and it’s probably unlikely that we’ll see that kind of performance this week.

Still, I think there will be some surprises on the field.

So that’s my prediction for this week. Short, sweet and nonspecific. Cast a wide net, and you’re bound to catch something. For now, all we have is unknowns.

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