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In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about postponed games, surprising players, the future on defense, the ACC preseason poll and more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

2020 strikes again Well, this week certainly took a turn.

I went from having this column virtually done by Thursday afternoon to seeing things go upside down pretty quickly when news came out that Pitt’s game at Georgia Tech on Saturday had been postponed to December.

I guess this wasn’t too much of a surprise. I mean, this game specifically getting postponed was a bit surprising, but the reality is, this possibility has been there all season. I haven’t really thought any previous games were in jeopardy, but that’s always been lurking under the surface.

Now, with COVID-19 cases rising nationally and locally, it seemed like more and more games would be in trouble. Sure enough, this weekend’s cancellations and postponements are in the double digits, and there have been nearly 60 games called or move this season.

It’s a shame, because Pitt seemed to be doing really well in managing the situation. Seven players were absent for the season opener due to COVID protocols and three missed the game against Syracuse a week later. But then the Panthers had a perfect record until this past weekend, when one player had to sit out.

But sooner or later, it seems, the pandemic will affect everyone. The week started with the Steelers putting several players in quarantine - including Ben Roethlisberger - and while those all weren’t positive tests, contact tracing is having as much of an impact as confirmed cases.

It sounds like that is part of the situation at Pitt: there are positive cases - Pitt’s campus as a whole has had a rough week with positives - but there is also a fair amount of quarantining due to contact tracing. Then you add in Georgia Tech having some issues of its own, and you end up with a game getting postponed.

This news was disappointing, to be sure. Pitt had some momentum from its win over Florida State, and Georgia Tech looked like an ideal opponent to keep that going.

Now the focus turns to next week’s home finale against Virginia Tech. That’s the plan, but we’ve all learned a lot about plans in the last eight months: they’re all tentative.

I didn’t know you had it in you
Quick: Without looking it up and without thinking about it too long, when was the last time Pitt really controlled a game against Power Five competition? When was the last time the Panthers held the momentum for more than one half in a game against another Power Five team?

Give up? I know it took me a minute or two, because it definitely didn’t happen last season. I started thinking about that time Pitt beat Wake Forest by three touchdowns to clinch the Coastal Division near the end of the 2018 regular season, but the Panthers were actually trailing in that game 10-6 at halftime. So that’s not it.

I guess it’s the week before that game, when Pitt blew the doors off Virginia Tech at home. The Panthers started with a 17-0 lead and then kept scoring pretty much at will after that. The Hokies were never close, and it was clear which team was controlling the momentum.

That was a long time ago - two years and a few days - and Pitt played 17 ACC games between that win and Saturday’s trip to Tallahassee. The Panthers’ wins among those 17 games came by an average of just 8.8 points, and that includes the 34-13 win over Wake Forest.

Since that Wake Forest game in 2018, Pitt’s wins over ACC opponents have all been by 11 points or less, an average of less than one touchdown per game.

Suffice to say, they’ve been cutting it close. And when you’ve been cutting it that close for that long, well, I’m going to be honest: I started wondering if Pitt still had the wherewithal to control a game against a conference foe.

Throw in a four-game losing streak and, in the most recent of memories entering last weekend, a 42-point blowout loss at home, and yeah, the idea of dominating an ACC opponent - any ACC opponent - seemed highly unlikely.

And when Saturday’s game against Florida State started, the prospects seemed even dimmer. Pitt scored first with a field goal before the Seminoles struck in short order. A 14-3 deficit in the first quarter can be deflating, but hang a 14-3 deficit on a team riding a four-game losing streak and do it with a quick-strike 88-yard touchdown run, and that team is liable to pack it in and go home.

Except the Panthers didn’t go home. The defense got a huge play from sophomore cornerback A.J. Woods and the offense turned that interception into a touchdown - something that Pitt’s offense hasn’t necessarily been adept at doing. The momentum swung to the visitors with that turn of events, and the Panthers never looked back.

You watched the game. You know what happened. And if you’re like me, you’re probably still a little surprised that it went down the way it did. Yes, Florida State is a bad team this season. But we have seen Pitt struggle with and outright lose to bad teams before. They had to squeak out wins against Syracuse, Duke and Georgia Tech last season (and that’s just in the ACC; do I need to bring up Ohio, Delaware and Eastern Michigan?). And we’ve seen Pitt flat-out lose to some North Carolina teams who didn’t have many other wins to speak of in those seasons.

Beating a bad team is no given for Pitt, and beating them convincingly is even less of a guarantee. So when they do it, when the Panthers take control of a game and don’t relinquish it, I have to give credit where it is due - surprising as it may have been.

Point/counterpoint on the offense
It’s a funny thing about Pitt’s offense: you can really have it both ways. If you want to criticize that group, there’s plenty of fodder. And if you want to praise them, you’ll find ample evidence as well from the win over FSU.

Point: Pitt scored 41 points on the Seminoles, the first time the Panthers have scored more than 34 against an ACC opponent since the Virginia Tech game in 2018.

Counterpoint: The offense only accounted for four touchdowns and got a boost from a pick-six and two field goals.

Counter-counterpoint: Pitt has gone 16 games since the last time it produced four offensive touchdowns in a conference game.

Counter-counter-counterpoint: Not one of those four touchdown drives at FSU started in Pitt territory. The Panthers’ eight possessions that started on their side of the 50 produced a grand total of six points.

Counter-counter-counter-counterpoint: When the defense gave the offense the ball in favorable field position, the offense cashed it in for touchdowns.

And all of those things are true, from the first 40-plus scoring output in 17 ACC games to the offense’s rather surprising ability to capitalize on the defense’s big plays (two interceptions and two turnovers on downs resulted in three touchdowns and a field goal).

The result is that the offense has plenty to be proud of - and plenty to build on. The Panthers had one drive of more than 50 yards against FSU, and that 78-yard march finished with a field goal (although Jordan Addison should have had a touchdown there). But they also came into the game as one of the worst red-zone teams in the country, and on Saturday they turned five trips inside the 20 into four touchdowns and a field goal.

Compare that to the Miami game, where Pitt got into the red zone five times and scored just one touchdown and four field goals. Two games - both played in the Sunshine State, by chance - with five red-zone trips each. In one game, the Panthers got 19 points from their time inside the 20. In the other, they got 31.

Want to guess which game they won?

Pitt’s offense has a lot of areas for improvement; that was the case before the FSU game and it’s still the case today. But the Panthers at least showed some positive signs in Tallahassee by protecting the football and scoring touchdowns when they had favorable field position. It’s a coach’s dream, really: the team did enough good things to get the win and enough less-good things to generate plenty of “teaching moments” for the week to come.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Who’s the biggest surprise?
Quick show of hands:

Who had SirVocea Dennis as Pitt’s leading tackler after eight games?

Yeah, me neither.

Okay, caveat time: if Paris Ford didn’t leave the team, he would still be leading the Panthers in tackles right now. But Dennis would be second, and that’s just as remarkable, because nobody - I mean, nobody - saw this coming.

I didn’t see it coming. You didn’t see it coming. The Pitt coaches didn’t see it coming.

When Dennis signed with Pitt as the final addition to the class of 2019, I don’t think anyone expected him to be a significant contributor anytime soon. Quite frankly, I don’t know if anyone expected him to be a significant contributor at some point in the future.

Dennis was a nice-looking linebacker prospect from upstate New York doing a prep year in New Jersey when he committed to Pitt over offers from Air Force (where he was previously committed), Dartmouth, Elon, Fordham, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh, UMass, Rhode Island, Richmond and - honestly the highlight of the list - Western Michigan.

I know we always say to take things in perspective and that offer sheets aren’t the ultimate indicator of a recruit’s talent, but…yeah, there’s not a whole lot there.

Roughly 22 months later, we’ve all got a different perspective. Dennis is Pitt’s leader in tackles (51) and tackles for loss (13.5), and he’s got four sacks plus 17 quarterback pressures, per Pro Football Focus.

That’s what he’s doing in the ACC. Imagine what kind of havoc he might have wreaked at Elon.

But it got me to thinking: is SirVocea Dennis the biggest surprise in recent Pitt history? I mean in terms of a player whose recruitment was unimpressive but his college career was on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Patrick Jones was a two-star recruit, according to Rivals, but he had offers from Cal, Duke, Illinois, N.C. State, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest. Rashad Weaver was a two-star prospect as well, but he also had a solid offer sheet.

Greg Romeus is the ultimate “two-star sleeper,” but even he had offers from Rutgers, Akron and UConn, among others.

Plus, while Jones, Weaver and Romeus were all two-star prospects who excelled at Pitt, none of them had the early success that Dennis has enjoyed. Jones played in 10 games during his second season with the Panthers and recorded seven tackles and one tackle for loss. Weaver was a little more active, starting five games as a redshirt freshman and recording 28 tackles, six tackles for loss and three sacks, but those numbers compiled over 12 games still pale next to what Dennis has done in eight contests.

Romeus is probably the closest comparison in terms of early contributions. He redshirted in 2006 and then blew up in 2007 and earned Freshman All-America honors for recording 41 tackles, 11.5 tackles for loss and four sacks. Dennis is beating those numbers, albeit from a position that lends itself a bit more to productivity, but that’s probably the best comparison we’re going to get. That both Romeus and Dennis were late adds to their recruiting classes only furthers the comp.

One final thought on Dennis (which someone mentioned to me; I didn’t think of this on my own):

Pitt pursued Dennis late in the 2019 recruiting cycle after losing an outside linebacker commit prior to the December Signing Day. That was Khadry Jackson, an athletic safety/outside linebacker from the Orlando area who committed to Pitt in June but flipped to North Carolina in December.

Jackson played in every game as a freshman at UNC, mostly on special teams. This year he has played in all seven of the Tar Heels’ games but has only lined up at linebacker in five of those. He has a total of three tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss on the season.

I’m not making any judgments on which player will end up having the better college and/or pro career, but Dennis doesn’t end up at Pitt if Jackson doesn’t decommit. It’s funny how things work out sometimes.

Is this the wave of the future?
So we just talked about SirVocea Dennis, but let’s broaden our focus a bit with Pitt’s defense, because Saturday’s game wasn’t just a display of what Pitt can look like when it does good things against bad teams.

Saturday’s game was also a display of the future.

Pitt used 20 players on defense against Florida State, and 13 of them had freshman or sophomore eligibility. Five of those 13 were starters, and 11 of the 13 played at least a dozen snaps.

You had Erick Hallett, Brandon Hill and A.J. Woods, who finished first, second and fourth, respectively in snaps played on defense. Hill finished as Pitt’s leading tackler and was named ACC Defensive Back of the Week, and he and Woods both had interceptions in the win.

Dennis, as we mentioned, was right behind Hill with seven tackles, three tackles for loss and two sacks. And to continue the theme, Woods also had seven tackles while redshirt sophomore defensive end John Morgan had a sack.

Sure, Pitt got big-time performances from Rashad Weaver and Patrick Jones and Damar Hamlin, but those younger players made some significant contributions to the win.

On top of that, a bunch of defensive freshmen - Bangally Kamara, Solomon DeShields, Jahvante Royal and Buddy Mack, plus Aydin Henningham, if you count him as a linebacker - played on special teams, pushing the total to close to 20. And that game was played without redshirt sophomores Marquis Williams and Tyler Bentley, who both have seen a lot of playing time this season.

You get the point.

We’ve all spent a lot of time and energy talking about the impending drop-off for Pitt’s defense in 2021, given all the talent and experience that is likely to leave the team this offseason. But Saturday’s game put the future on display. The secondary, which came into the season with four soon-to-be-departed stars, lined up with a redshirt sophomore, a true sophomore and a redshirt freshman on Saturday - and those guys did really well in their roles.

When we talk about Pat Narduzzi and this coaching staff stocking the defense with talent, this is what we’re talking about.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt will finish higher than 13th
All the focus is on football, but there was some basketball news this week when the ACC preseason poll came out. As you probably read - and as you might have expected - Jeff Capel’s squad didn’t show up high in the poll, checking in at No. 13, ahead of Boston College and Wake Forest and behind everyone else.

I can’t say I was terribly surprised. We all think highly of some of Pitt’s returning pieces, but this is a team that went 6-14 in the ACC last season to tie for the league’s worst record, and not one Pitt player made any of the conference’s post-season lists.

Nobody made the all-conference first, second or third team. Nobody was an honorable mention. Nobody got on the all-freshman team. Nobody was in the running for freshman of the year, defensive player of the year, most improved player of the year or 6th man of the year.

Every team in the conference got at least one mention in the postseason honors - every team except Pitt. It’s like the Panthers’ season didn’t happen; or, at the very least, it wasn’t remarkable enough to draw attention from the ACC media contingent.

So it’s not exactly shocking to find that Pitt is near the bottom of the league in the preseason poll. But as we sit here in mid-November, wondering at least a little bit if the season will even happen or how much of it will happen, I will go out on a rather solid limb and predict that Pitt finishes higher than 13th.

I can’t say that I have scouted every team in the ACC. I think the fact that five different teams received first-place votes, coupled with the apparent three-tier separation in the league, speaks a lot to the uncertainty about the conference’s teams this year. But when I look at Pitt, I see a lot to like.

There’s Xavier Johnson, of course; I think the junior point guard learned some hard-but-necessary lessons last season, and I’m pretty interested to see how he processes those lessons this year.

There’s Justin Champagnie, whose breakout campaign as a freshman really was one of the few bright spots for Pitt in the 2019-20 season.

There’s Au’Diese Toney, whose big step forward as a sophomore was probably second to Champagnie in terms of bright spots.

And there’s Ithiel Horton, the big wild card whose legend grew as he drilled against the starters every week in practice while he sat out due to NCAA transfer eligibility rules. If he’s even 75% of the player that everyone from Capel on down has said that he is, he’ll be a big boost to the Panthers this season.

But Horton is a good example of the reason the broader perception of Pitt maybe isn’t as high as some of the local expectations are. We’ve all heard how good he is and how much he’ll help this team, but he’s still an unknown. Until he gets on the court and contributes to a few wins, no one is going to consider him an asset to the team.

And that goes for a bunch of guys. Nike Sibande should help the backcourt - but it remains to be seen if he’ll be eligible. John Hugley should be a boost to the front court - but it remains to be seen how he’ll contribute as a freshman. Other freshmen could contribute, too, but there again: unless you’re dealing with blue-chip recruits, it’s tough to project what a freshman will do.

Those unknowns could very well end up being the key to some success this season, but the nature of being an unknown leads to questions about what a team will do.

I think some of those guys will be pleasant surprises, and I think those surprises will couple with solid improvement from the key returning players, and the result will be a top-12 finish, at worst.

You know, assuming a season gets played.