The 3-2-1 Column: The latest commits and the start of training camp
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In this week's Panther-Lair.com 3-2-1 Column, we're talking about Pitt's newest commitments and the start of training camp.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
A recruiting class is more than one recruit
Generally speaking, Pitt fans weren’t too thrilled with Pitt recruiting this week.
The Panthers landed three commitments, first from cornerback AJ Woods, then from offensive lineman Matthew Goncalves and finally from receiver Jared Wayne.
The reaction to those commitments was mixed, at best. That stemmed almost entirely from the offer sheets of Woods, Goncalves and Wayne. Woods flipped to Pitt from James Madison and only had one other Power Five offer (Virginia). Goncalves and Wayne didn’t have any other Power Five offers; Goncalves’ best options aside from Pitt were UConn, Buffalo and Toledo, while Wayne had Bowling Green, Old Dominion and South Florida.
Given the variability of star rankings, offer sheets often hold a strong position in how fans perceive recruits, and Pitt’s two newest commitments don’t exactly rate highly in that regard.
As you might expect, much consternation ensued, particularly after Goncalves committed, since he’s at an important position that also just so happens to be a major question mark on the team this season (that confluence of frustration I talked about earlier in the week).
But here’s the thing: Pitt’s 2019 recruiting class is more than the three kids who committed this week. Pitt’s class is also Davis Beville, who has been Shawn Watson’s top target at quarterback for a long time. It’s Travis Koontz, who is one of the top JUCO tight ends in the nation. It’s Calijah Kancey and Bryce Nelms and Brandon Mack and Brandon Hill and Deandre Jules, whose offer lists spanned the ACC, the Big Ten, the SEC and the Big 12.
It’s Khadry Jackson, a camp offer who got his Pitt scholarship after pulling in offers from schools like North Carolina, N.C. State, Nebraska and Missouri. It’s Kyi Wright, who had UCLA and Wisconsin among his Power Five offers. 75% of Pitt’s commitments have offer sheets with multiple Power Five schools.
And the guys whose offer sheets don’t jump off the page have some other element that does jump off the page. Jason Collier is 6’7”. AJ Woods ran a 4.38 40-yard dash. Jared Wayne was one of the best receivers at Pitt’s prospect camps this summer. Brandon George is a prototypical middle linebacker who could grow into a defensive end. Bam Brima is the kind of lean athlete coaches like developing at end. Even Goncalves has intrigue as a tight end/defensive end who will move to tackle at Pitt.
I know that perception tends to be affected by the most recent events. The 3-0 loss in the 2008 Sun Bowl tainted the view of a pretty good nine-win season. The win over Bowling Green in the pizza bowl five years later painted too rosy a picture of a six-win season. A bad opening drive can seem to doom a game and a strong finish to the first half can create too much optimism for the final 30 minutes of a game.
Similarly, the most recent commit (or commits) has, in some circles, given way to a belief that the 2019 class as a whole is full of developmental prospects who are, in the most derisive way possible, “under the radar.”
That’s simply not the case. Are there some “projects” in the class? Sure, and there always will be. But that’s not the majority of the class or even a significant percentage, in my view. There are 17 recruits in Pitt’s 2019 recruiting class, and it’s important to look at the group as a collection of all 17 - not just the most recent one or two.
The process is important to recognize
I understand the mindset of watching offer sheets, and when a new recruit comes onto the radar, that’s one of the first things I look at, too:
Who else has offered?
And I can understand the fan’s perspective and what he or she wants to see on a recruit’s offer sheet. A fan wants his or her favorite team’s recruits to have offers from the top powers in college football. That’s not an unreasonable mindset, because if you want to beat the best on the field - and thus make yourself “the best” - then it helps a whole lot to beat them off the field, i.e. in recruiting.
To that end, Pitt’s commits don’t have offers from the last three teams to win national championships (Ohio State and Alabama and Clemson). But I would contend that you have to look at it incrementally: for Pitt to get to the highest levels of college football, there’s a step-by-step process.
Step One is beating the teams in the middle/upper-middle of the sport, teams like those in the Coastal Division (and some in the Atlantic). As far as that goes, I think Pitt’s commits have offer sheets that include a bunch of those schools.
Once you start beating those teams regularly on the field, the overall records are going to improve, leading to eight and nine and 10-win seasons. Get to that level consistently, and I believe you’ll start seeing Pitt competing for and landing recruits with offers from some of the schools in that top tier.
That’s when you can make the next step.
Pitt isn’t going to go from averaging seven wins to the playoffs overnight. A program like this has to build. Should it be further along in Pat Narduzzi’s fourth season as he works on his fifth recruiting class? Perhaps; that depends on what you make of the situation he inherited and what he has done to build since then.
But for now, I think it’s okay for Pitt to be competing against other middle-tier ACC/Big Ten/SEC teams and getting recruits that those programs covet (which has largely been the case in the 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 classes). Win those recruiting battles and you should start consistently winning those games. Start consistently winning those games and you should start seeing bigger things - on and off the field.
It really is about the quarterback
Now on to the team since, you know, training camp starts today.
For Pitt football in 2018, it really comes down to one guy: Kenny Pickett.
I know, I know - there are 11 players on offense, 11 players on defense and 11 players on special teams plus reserves and rotational players and all of that. 40 or 50 guys will determine Pitt’s fate in 2018.
But it’s still about Kenny Pickett.
In 2017, Pitt had a few issues that led to the 5-7 record. But none was bigger than quarterback. With better quarterback play, more effective quarterback play, the Panthers would have won more than five games. I’m willing to put Syracuse, North Carolina and Virginia Tech in the win column with better quarterback play, and I don’t think I’m stretching too far to make that assumption.
Really, better-than-average quarterback play puts Pitt right in the mix against Penn State and N.C. State, too. Give the Panthers those three wins - Syracuse, UNC and VT - and you’re at eight wins; say they split PSU and N.C. State and now you’re at nine.
And again, I don’t think I’m stretching too far on that assumption. A strong defensive performance against a bad Miami offense was huge in the season finale, but the piece that truly separated Pitt, the element that put the Panthers over the top, was the play at quarterback.
The good defensive performance was going to happen regardless, but I don’t know if Pitt scores enough to beat Miami with a lesser quarterback.
So it’s about Kenny Pickett. And while there’s a ton of optimism about him - at least among Pitt fans and Pitt coaches - he’s still got a bit to prove. He would probably be the first person to agree with that. In his career, Pickett has played one full game, three-quarters of another game, a handful of series in a third game and one play in a fourth.
That’s not a long history. That last game looms large, as it should, but the sophomore from New Jersey still has to show what he can do in a full season, how he responds to defenses that have tape on him and, perhaps most importantly, how smart he can be over the course of 12 games. That includes being smart with the football and smart about when he runs with the ball; being brave and throwing caution to the wind in his first career start was one thing, but when Pickett needs to preserve his body for a full season, he’s going to have to make sure he’s doing the best thing for the team.
Mostly, though, Pickett needs to do all the things that inspired confidence in the coaching staff from the time he arrived.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
Can the defense do it?
There are two sources of optimism about Pitt this season, and they’re both based on assumptions. I mentioned one assumption - that Pickett will be good - in the last section of this column. Now for the other assumption, which goes as follows:
After four years, Pat Narduzzi has the players in place with the requisite experience to operate his defense and execute it well.
The combination of Pickett and the defense - that’s what is expected to lead Pitt on its path to success in 2018.
What can go wrong?
Well, we covered Pickett already; a lot is expected of the sophomore quarterback, and he needs to be up to the task. As for the defense, I think it’s absolutely fair to withhold judgment, and I say that as someone who has beaten the “defense got better over the course of the 2017 season” drum as loudly as anyone.
I think that’s true: I think the defense did play better in the second half of last season than it did in the first half. Some of that is tied to the level of competition, and I think it’s reasonable to say that the final six teams didn’t present offenses that were as challenging as some of those in the first six games.
But I also believe that the defense did improve. Save for count-on-one-hand breakdowns against N.C. State (a busted run play that went for a long touchdown in the first quarter) and North Carolina (an inability to get off the field during a key drive in the fourth quarter), Pitt’s defense played well down the stretch.
The Miami game was the crowning achievement, but that kind of performance doesn’t happen overnight and it certainly doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Like the West Virginia game in 2007, it was the culmination of improvement that had taken place over the previous weeks and months.
So that’s all well and good. Pitt’s defense got better last season. And now it returns almost all of the players who contribute to that improvement. As such, we’re all expecting great - or at least better-than-good - things out of the defense.
Are they up to the task?
Unfortunately, we won’t have an answer to this question until a month or two from now. But so much is riding on that unit taking a big step forward that the question of the defense’s performance is one of the most important for the team.
Are there any unknown weaknesses?
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Pickett and the defense are a couple areas of concern, of which I think we’re all well aware.
Namely, I’m talking about the receivers and the offensive line. Due to a combination of factors, from attrition to uncertain talent ceilings and personnel question marks, the receivers and the line are fairly considerable concerns this season, particularly given the importance of Pickett’s play and the role those two positions play in his potential success.
But everybody knows the wide receivers and the offensive line are question marks; are there any other unknown - or at least under-discussed - question marks and weaknesses we should be keeping an eye on?
One I would point to is the punter. Ryan Winslow was a rock-solid punter for the last four seasons who even had a few nice passes; now he’s gone and redshirt freshman Kirk Christodoulou is set to take the job. It’s anyone’s guess how he will perform in that position, and for a team that might find itself in some situations where points are hard to come by, good field position can be helpful. Winslow did a good job of that; will Christodoulou?
The defense has a few question marks, too. While there is plenty of reason for optimism, the defensive ends still have quite a bit to prove after posting the lowest production as a position group in years last season. Dewayne Hendrix and Rashad Weaver have all-conference potential, but it has to show up this season.
The safeties are in a similarly uncertain boat. Damar Hamlin is a former four-star recruit and Phil Campbell seems to be tailor-made for the run-stopping boundary safety position, but those players are far from accomplished in their careers thus far. They’ll be counted on to play major roles this year, and like the defensive ends, if they fall short of expectations, it will bring down the overall play of the defense.
The tight ends are a question mark as well, but that situation is a little unique. Quite frankly, it’s tough to imagine the tight ends and H-backs (we should lump those two together) producing less than they did in 2017, when Chris Clark, Matt Flanagan and Tyler Sear - with Flanagan and Sear playing H-back in place of George Aston - combined for 34 catches and one touchdown. For comparison, in 2016 those positions - manned by Aston and Scott Orndoff - combined for 57 catches and 10 touchdown receptions.
With Aston back, the production at tight end and H-back should increase from last season. It’s still up in the air as to what Sear and grad transfer Will Gragg can do, but the numbers should be better.
ONE PREDICTION
This isn’t a make-or-break year for Narduzzi
(At least, it’s not any more of a make-or-break season than any other year…)
Look, 2017 was a down year for Pitt. Nobody would deny that, least of all Pat Narduzzi. He would be the first to tell you that five-win seasons aren’t good enough, and more of those will lead to a change.
But that was also Narduzzi’s first losing season at Pitt, and it came on the heels of the most successful first two seasons by a Pitt head coach since Foge Fazio (that’s 30-plus years, if you’re counting). Narduzzi has some humps to get over - winning a bowl game, for one - but he has notched some very big wins (Clemson, Miami) and mostly avoided the bad losses (there’s no Bowling Green or Akron or Toledo on his resume).
And while I’m hesitant to talk contracts because we all know how little value those tend to carry, it’s worth keeping in mind that Heather Lyke just extended Narduzzi’s stay at Pitt by seven years.
That doesn’t mean she can’t turn around tomorrow and fire him, but I think Lyke believes in what Narduzzi is building. As such, I think he can get by with another subpar record if that’s what 2018 brings. Obviously, that would create some heat on the 2019 season, but this year does set up a good opportunity for Narduzzi: the difficult schedule should create some wiggle room with expectations, while at the same time he’ll have a chance to give a glimpse of the future he’s building toward with Pickett and the defense.
What does Narduzzi need to accomplish this season? That depends on who you ask. I think the best thing to shoot for is improvement: tangible and identifiable signs that the process is working, that Narduzzi’s plan is coming together and has Pitt on a path to greater success.
That’s what the 13-9 game in 2007 did: it gave everyone, for the first time, a real, honest-to-God indication that what Dave Wannstedt was trying to do was actually working. It showed that the plan we all heard about was actually viable - that it would actually lead to wins. And it did: Pitt won nine games the next season and 10 the year after that.
Will Pitt win nine games this season? I don’t know. But if the Panthers can take the elements that propelled them to the win over Miami - namely, Pickett and defense - and get some other piece of the team to take a big step forward, then they can win some games this season and, in the process, create some hope for the years to come.