We've got a lot to discuss in today's 3-2-1 Column, from Pitt's volleyball in the NCAA Tournament to Signing Day, the 7-5 season, the blowout hoops loss, portal targets and a lot more.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
The killer instinct
Something pretty exciting starts tonight, and I think you know what it is.
It’s the march to a national championship.
A quick search through Wikipedia reveals that the University of Pittsburgh claims 11 team national championships.
Nine of those are football and the other two are men’s basketball.
There’s a slew of individual national championships (17 in wrestling and 28 in track and field, for example), but in terms of team titles, there are just 11.
In a couple weeks, that number will have a chance to hit a perfect dozen.
Of course, I’m talking about the Pitt women’s volleyball team, the No. 1 team in the country who was awarded the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Panthers open postseason play against Morehead State tonight at the Petersen Events Center, and if they win that one, they’ll get Oklahoma or UTEP on Saturday.
Win that one, and they’ll move on to the regional semifinals and, after that, the regional finals - all of which Pitt will host at the Pete. There’s a chance that the Panthers could meet SMU in the regional finals, which would be a rubber match between the two teams after each won at home in the regular season.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves; the Pitt women have three games to win before that happens.
I debated putting the volleyball talk in the “One Prediction” section of today’s column, but given how my predictions typically go, I decided against it. I can only imagine what I would hear if I predicted the Panthers to win it all and they ended up losing to Morehead State.
Instead, I’ll say this:
Pitt should win the national championship.
All too often, we have a championship-or-bust mentality in this city. I get it. I understand where it comes from. But in too many instances, we apply it to sports - college sports, in particular - where a lot can be accomplished short of a championship. Jamie Dixon’s runs of Sweet Sixteen appearances, for instance, were viewed as failures rather than the successes they were, and I think that was when I realized what the mindset was locally.
But in the case of Pitt women’s volleyball, it really is championship or bust. This team has to win it all. For this team to be as talented as they are and as dominant as they have been, the only fitting conclusion is for them to be standing on the court in Louisville around 5 pm on Sunday, Dec. 22, hoisting a national championship trophy.
(That’s right: the national semifinals and finals are in Louisville, which means the Panthers could meet their arch-nemesis Cardinals on their home court with a championship on the line. Talk about high drama.)
There’s just something about this team. They’re insanely talented, of course, and they’ve got a bunch of players - Three? Four? Five? - who are legitimately among the best in the nation. That’s a key place to start.
But there’s something else about them, and the best way I can describe it is this:
They’re stone-cold killers.
“Liv’s a killer,” the Hanson brothers might say.
I can’t claim to be a volleyball aficionado. My interest in this year’s team - as with the teams of the last few years - is largely tied to the team’s success, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But what I can see, and what I think just about any sports fan can see, is that this team has an ability to seemingly decide at any point to straight-up kill an opponent.
I saw it a number of times this season. Pitt would be facing a lesser opponent, and that lesser opponent might score a few consecutive points or get a little momentum, and it was at that moment that Pitt decided the momentum needed to end.
And it would always end with the Panthers putting their collective foot on the collective neck of the other team.
That’s how you get through an entire season and only lose 10 sets in 30 matches. You don’t just beat teams; you punish them. The only team that beat Pitt all season was SMU; the only other times an opponent won more than one set against the Panthers was in their home wins over Louisville and Georgia Tech.
So, in 30 matches, only six teams managed to win a set against Pitt and only three won more than one set.
That’s dominance.
That’s a killer instinct.
You want to know how I know that this team is on the verge of something great? We’re 48 hours removed from Signing Day, one of the high holies of the college sports calendar, and I just used the first section of this column to talk about volleyball.
Signing Day
It happened.
On Wednesday.
I’ll be the first to admit: Signing Day doesn’t quite stand out on the calendar as much as it used to, and there’s probably a few reasons for that.
The first is the timing. When Signing Day was the first Wednesday in February, it was a huge event because it took center stage. Until 2022, the Super Bowl was held on the first Sunday in February (from 2004-21) or even in late January, so that was done before Signing Day. And in college basketball, conference games were happening and they were all important, of course, but things can hit a bit of a lull in the first week of February before March really appears on the horizon.
Right there between all of it, after the Super Bowl and before March Madness, was Signing Day, a bright beacon standing as a spotlight on how good your favorite team will be in the future. It was the promise of a better tomorrow, standing tall amidst an otherwise slow point in the sports calendar.
All eyes were on Signing Day; even the curmudgeons in local media would at least pay attention to it, even if only to look upon the event with scorn and disinterest (and perhaps aggravation at being forced to notice it).
It was a big deal.
Then the NCAA added an early Signing Day on the third Wednesday of December. It was still a big deal, but…
The NFL was in the home stretch of the regular season at that point on the calendar. College hoops was getting rolling, too. Christmas was right around the corner, which looms large over everyone. And college football was still happening, as its postseason not only continued with the bowls but also intensified with the creation of the College Football Playoff.
Signing Day still mattered. It was still an event. But it didn’t have nearly as much attention on it in its new place in mid-December.
And right around the time when the NCAA created a December Signing Day, something else happened.
The transfer portal.
Not so slowly but ever so surely over the last three years, offseason additions have taken on a new look. It’s not just about adding high school prospects anymore; now, schools are bringing in transfers - older players who are more physically developed and experienced and will be able to help the team right away, as opposed to the recruits “coming out of high school where maybe your strength coach was the same guy that's teaching world history,” as Pitt offensive line coach Jeremy Darveau put it on Wednesday.
In a matter of just a few years, Signing Day went from having no competition for attention to being overshadowed by not just other sports but by college football itself.
But wait; there’s more.
Because there’s another way that the transfer portal cut into Signing Day’s shine.
Every player in the transfer portal was, at some point, a recruit who signed on Signing Day, a prospect whose choice of school excited that school’s fanbase. And now he’s gone to another school via the portal.
So if you’re a fan, you might find your interest in the high school kids waning a bit if you can’t shake the feeling that a lot of them are going to be in the portal in a year or two.
And, just in case the situation wasn’t challenging enough for the institution of Signing Day, there’s one more complication:
The NCAA moved it again.
This latest move shifted Signing Day from the third Wednesday in December to the first Wednesday of the month. That puts Signing Day in the week between the end of the regular season and the conference championship games. Now you’ve got even more things drawing attention away from Signing Day, and on top of that, the move to the first week of the month cut out the two weeks (or, in the old days, two months) of post-regular season recruiting activity that used to build up the anticipation for Signing Day.
It’s really not an exaggeration to say that literally every move the NCAA has made with the recruiting calendar in the last five years has lessened the hype of Signing Day.
Now, that doesn’t mean the luster is all gone. It’s still a day to celebrate recruiting, and I think some of those vibes were flowing on Wednesday. Pitt signed 21 players, including two who were a bit of a surprise on Signing Day, so that’s always fun. And we had a ton of content, so even if fans were a bit less hyped for Signing Day than they used to be, it was still pretty easy to kill the day sitting on the message boards talking about Pitt recruiting.
Who doesn’t like doing that?
And while transfers are all the rage for their immediate impact, there’s still a lot of truth in the notion that most programs in the nation - like Pitt - are going to build the foundation of their roster through high school recruiting: identifying and developing talent.
So it’s still important. It still matters. And it’s still quite a spectacle.
But I would be lying if I said I don’t miss the first Wednesday in February a little bit. Maybe this year on Feb. 5 I’ll put a candle in a cupcake and sing a “Happy Signing Day” song.
For old time's sake.
Pitt’s class
Let’s get down to brass tacks and talk about Pitt’s recruiting class. Enough bloviating about volleyball and waxing nostalgic about Signing Day.
What did the Panthers get on Wednesday? Let’s break it down.
Quarterback - Mason Heintschel was the signing. He was an early target for Kade Bell and fits Bell’s system as a mobile quarterback who can throw from the pocket and make plays on the run. He led his team to an 8-3 record and its first league title in 40 years.
Running back - Synkwan Smith and Ja’Kyrian Turner were June commits for Pitt and Jaylin Brown joined the class on Signing Day. Brown is a little bigger than Smith and Turner - he’s 5’11” - but all three have speed to burn, which is a recurring theme here.
Wide receiver - Three players and here’s that theme again: speed, speed, speed. Tony Kinsler, Bryce Yates and Cameron Sapp were all productive in high school, and when they get the ball in their hands, they can go the distance.
Tight end - Pitt signed Max Hunt to play tight end after he caught 50+ passes over the last two seasons as a big receiver in Tampa. He fits what Bell seems to be looking for at tight end: a big athlete who can line up wide or in the slot.
Offensive line - This is a bit of a crapshoot. The reality is, when it comes to Pitt and offensive line recruiting, the staff might as well cast a wide net (and not just in terms of looking in England). After signing five linemen last year, the coaches are bringing in four this year, and that’s probably a good approach: sign a bunch of guys and see who pans out.
Defensive end - Denim Cook and Julian Anderson are really intriguing defensive end prospects. Neither really played end in high school, but they both have physical profiles that Tim Daoust likes, with Cook as a big, bruising pass-rusher and Anderson as a rangy athlete who can rush off the edge.
Defensive tackle - Trevor Sommers was the first commit in the class. He’s listed in the rivals.com database as an end but he’ll play tackle at Pitt.
Linebacker - The Pitt staff has really developed a model for what it wants at linebacker in recent years, and Justin Thompson and Emmanuel Taylor fit that mold. They’re both athletes who can play physical but also run well.
Cornerback - Shawn Lee from Harrisburg might be my favorite recruit in this class; or, at the very least, his highlight film is as good as it gets. During his junior season, Harrisburg put the ball in his hands because he was the best player on the team, and he was really dynamic. Meanwhile, Mason Alexander is the top-rated recruit in the class as a four-star cornerback.
Safety - Pitt signed two safeties - Joshua Guerrier and Cole Woodson - and those two guys plus Lee and Guerrier have speed to spare. I think we all have a certain amount of confidence in this staff’s ability to recruit safeties, and Guerrier and Woodson fit what the coaches have brought in over the last few years.
Overall, then, I think there’s a lot of speed in this class. All four defensive backs and all six offensives skill players are really fast, and that makes up nearly half the class. There are question marks on the offensive line, but that’s probably going to be the case more often than not if you recruit where Pitt recruits. Heintschel looks like a really good add at quarterback - Bell called him a “steal” - and Hunt is intriguing as a pass-catching tight end. The front seven on defense looks really promising, too.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
Was the season a success?
This is a stupid question.
It really is.
And I say this as someone who has spent way too much time in the last six years debating whether a season was a success.
Most of that debate centered around 2018, a perfect yin yang of a season that saw Pitt go 7-7 (bad) and win the Coastal Division (good). You can make a compelling case either way for whether that season was good or bad, and while I tend to come down on the side of success - doe-eyed optimist that I am - I can’t disagree with anyone who says a .500 team with three losses of 30 points or more could hardly be termed a success.
It’s all in the perspective you choose to take.
And so it is with the 2024 season, where the choice of perspective is a bit different from the choice with 2018.
A lot of times, our choice in how we perceive a season comes down to whether we’re taking a more narrow view or a broader perspective. In the broader perspective, Pitt thoroughly bounced back from going 3-9 by more than doubling its win total from a year ago, and did so on the strength of two epic comebacks, a win in a place the Panthers have never won before and a wildly memorable game with three pick-sixes, all while a handful of individual players emerged as big-time contributors.
That’s the broader perspective.
The more narrow perspective isn’t so kind.
The more narrow perspective is, Pitt found its way to 7-0 and a CFP top-20 ranking only to completely collapse for five consecutive losses - a losing streak that made the 7-0 start feel like not only a distant memory, but possibly even a house of cards that was never as good as it seemed in the moment.
I can see both sides. And I’ll be honest: that second view - the more narrow view - has a whole lot of merit. The five-game losing streak was a disappointment of monumental proportions. Week after week, plenty of us - myself included, and perhaps prominently - said, “No. There’s no way they’ll lose five in a row. They won’t go 12-0, but they’ll win at least nine games.”
And week after week, the losses kept piling up. Week after week, Pitt kept finding new ways to lose. There were injuries and bizarre officiating gaffes, but there was also a whole lot of bad football on both sides of the ball, questionable coaching in a number of areas and generally the Panthers doing a whole bunch of things that losing teams do.
Pitt kept doing them, and Pitt kept losing.
And it got to the point where the five-game losing streak overshadowed the 7-0 start.
Again, understandably so.
At some point, losing five games in a row even called into question the legitimacy of the 7-0 start.
Was it all a mirage? (I don’t think so.) Was it all against lesser competition? (Some, but not all.) Was Pitt never as good as we thought they were? (Yeah, maybe.)
And so you’re left in this in-between, caught between a world where Pitt made history and broke out with some talented underclassmen who should be even better in 2025, and a world where the Panthers went from nationally relevant to completely out of the picture, their success a forgotten relic of the first half of the season.
Pitt was pretty good…until it wasn’t.
In the end, the Panthers went 7-5. By my own definition, that’s not a good season. I think eight wins in the bottom end of what can be considered a “good season” in college football. 7-5 isn’t much better than 6-6, and going .500 is not a good season.
But…
Pitt also took some major steps forward. The Panthers’ new offense looked dynamite at times, a couple of guys on that side of the ball showed a whole lot of promise and several players on defense - particularly at linebacker - emerged as absolute playmakers.
There was good in Pitt’s 2024 season. A whole lotta good.
And a whole lotta bad.
So it’s complicated. It’s not as simple as “Narduzzi sucks.” I’m sorry, but it’s not, and if you’re reducing Pitt’s season to that appraisal, then you probably made your mind up a long time ago about the Panthers’ head coach.
For me, I don’t know what to make of the season. There are things I can point to as good and things I can point to as bad. And there’s part of me that thinks, “You know, if Pitt went 7-5 but the seven wins were spread over the whole season instead of being the first seven games, more people would be okay with how it turned out.”
But since Pitt started 7-0, the expectations grew - as did the height of the cliff that the Panthers ultimately fell from.
So I don’t know what to make of this season. I think there are pieces to build from and I think there are a lot of caveats to add around the losing streak. But the losing streak happened; that can’t be denied.
Bringing it back, then: was the season a success?
It's up to you.
Will Capel burn the tape?
I think most coaches disagree with the notion of “burning the tape” - Jeff Capel himself has said he doesn’t believe in the concept - but sometimes, there are games that get so out of hand, almost right from the start, that they seem to move beyond the point of serving any real purpose or giving any real insight.
Of course, we’re talking about Pitt’s destruction in Starkville on Wednesday night, when the Panthers, ranked No. 18 and riding high off their buzzer beater at Ohio State, got thrown around the court like the dead body prop in a cheap horror film.
But even those dead body props show more life than Pitt did on Wednesday night.
It really was that ugly, and it got that bad in a hurry. Like, right after tip-off when Mississippi State scored three baskets in the first two minutes.
Ishmael Leggett finally got Pitt on the board with a layup - one of three Pitt would make in the entire game - and Mississippi State answered back with a free throw and a three-pointer.
That’s how it would go all night. The Bulldogs always - always - had an answer for anything the Panthers did. Pitt made consecutive baskets just once in the entire game; it was right around the 16:00 mark in the first half when Jaland Lowe hit back-to-back jump shots, and Pitt turned it into a 6-0 run with two free throws from Zack Austin.
You know what happened after that? Mississippi State made four baskets in a row to push its lead back to 10. And when Austin had the audacity to stop the Bulldogs’ run with a three-pointer, the home team struck back with even more ferocity and made six consecutive field goals, including a dunk, two layups and two three-pointers.
All of a sudden Pitt was down 32-11 in the midst of a 22-3 Mississippi State run, and somehow it would only get worse after that.
Sometimes in games that get ridiculous like this, it’s the result of a bad first half. A team digs itself a hole and can’t get out, but at least they show some fight and maybe even win the second half.
Ohio State did this on Wednesday, falling behind Maryland 50-17 in the first half but outscoring the Terrapins in the second half; the Buckeyes still lost the game, but at least they did something right eventually.
Pitt didn’t outscore Mississippi State in the second half Wednesday night, but the second-half deficit (43-32) was better than the first (47-25), so there’s that. But really, the Panthers scored 32 points in the second half because that’s what the Bulldogs allowed them to do. And the Bulldogs only beat the Panthers by 11 in the second half because that’s the deficit they chose. If Mississippi State had preferred a second-half advantage of, say, 13 points or nine points or some other number, I have no doubt that they could have placed the score wherever they wanted it to be.
Seriously, the Bulldogs controlled that game to such an extent that you might as well have installed KeShawn Murphy or Michael Nwoko as the scoreboard operator; they were pretty much doing that job anyway.
But that’s not the question. Nobody has any uncertainty about the complete and utter dominance Mississippi State showed on Wednesday night. We all saw it.
The question is what I asked before:
Was that game so far out of whack that it more or less has nothing to offer in terms of analysis or evaluation? Was it like the star baby at the end of 2001, mutating into some different kind of entity altogether on a distant astral plane, fully disconnected from life as we know it?
Maybe.
Maybe it was a classic case of burning the tape because there’s nothing to get from it.
I don’t think that’s entirely the case. I think Wednesday night’s game will serve a purpose for Capel, who will no doubt use the experience, as unpleasant as it was, to re-emphasize the importance of physicality and playing with force. Mississippi State was in control, and while a whole lot of that was a credit to the Bulldogs, Pitt was never able to answer the home team’s energy. The Panthers needed to play every possession like their lives depended on it, because that’s how the Bulldogs were playing.
Pitt never even came close to matching that, and there are teaching points in there.
On the whole, though, it was a game where nothing that Pitt did was even close to successful.
It wasn’t one of those nights. It was one of those nights.
ONE PREDICTION
Pitt’s going to get a big offensive line haul
Two weeks ago, I wrote the 3-2-1 Column and predicted that Pitt would beat Louisville.
*Fart sound*
I’m going with something much more obvious and much more likely to happen for this week’s prediction.
I know you’ve probably already assumed that Pitt will take a bunch of offensive linemen from the transfer portal this offseason, but I’m going to use this opportunity to talk about it - a discussion masquerading as a prediction (which I often do in these columns).
The simple fact of the matter is, Pitt needs offensive linemen. Not just numbers to fill out the roster, but proven, experienced offensive linemen who can come in and play.
The Panthers need offensive linemen for the starting lineup and they need offensive linemen to fill in the depth so they don’t get caught in the same situation they were in this year.
For the starting five, Pitt needs at least two linemen from the portal, depending on how you view the returning players. I think B.J. Williams and Lyndon Cooper seem okay at right guard and center, respectively. Ryan Baer should also be good, too, although he presents an interesting question:
Is he better at guard or tackle?
I think he sees himself as a tackle and he came to Pitt to play tackle. But I don’t think a move inside to guard is out of the question.
Either way, I think Pitt returns, at most, three linemen who are ready to start next year, meaning there’s a need for at least two more who can step into the starting lineup.
And then the Panthers need players for depth. It says a whole lot about Pitt’s roster that basically one injury - Branson Taylor’s season-ending injury suffered in the sixth game against Cal - wreaked that much havoc on the entirety of the line and, by extension, the offense.
The Panthers need better starters and better backups.
It’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be cheap, because there are probably very few teams in the country that would not be interested in a starter-quality offensive tackle or two. And because of the importance of the position, offensive tackle figures to be among one of the more expensive positions to acquire from the portal on a yearly basis.
But Pitt has to do it. The coaches - and other adjacent parties - need to dig deep and find the right fits for Kade Bell’s offense who can be landed at the right price for Pitt’s budget.
Because here’s the thing:
I think the Pitt staff is - or should be - looking at 2025 as a huge opportunity. The Panthers will have at least one more year with Eli Holstein; maybe more, maybe not, but definitely one year (assuming he returns, which I believe he will).
Say what you will about how Holstein played after the first five games, but I think most would agree that he showed a whole lot of potential this season before some defensive adjustments made him look like a redshirt freshman and some injuries held him to just one full, healthy game in the final five.
I think the coaches believe in him enough to believe that the iron is hot, in terms of having a good quarterback. Which means making sure he’s got everything he needs to be successful. Which means protecting him. Which means giving him time to make plays.
Which means bringing in good offensive linemen.
It’s crucial for 2025 and it will be the primary focus in the portal - with an emphasis on both quality and quantity.
Transfer tracker: The latest on Pitt's portal departures and additions
