MORE HEADLINES - Mack and Collins discuss official visits | Video: Capel previews WVU | Capel on turnovers, freshmen, Huggins and more | Notebook: News, notes and numbers on the season | Film review: Pitt's offensive struggles against Clemson | Film review: How Pitt's defense played in the ACC title game

The offense, the Sun Bowl, wake-up calls for the hoops team and more in this week’s 3-2-1 Column.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

It’s all about Pickett
If any single topic has dominated Pitt conversation since the end of the season - and longer, really - it’s the matter of the offense. More precisely, how bad the offense was.

Of course, that’s influenced largely by the last two games, when Pitt scored a grand total of 13 points and punted 21 times. The offense was really bad in those two, but there’s a funny thing about a numbers: you can always slice them and dice them in different ways.

So the offense averaged 26.6 points per game this season. That’s bad. That ranks No. 82 nationally and No. 12 in the ACC. But in conference games - including the title game against Clemson - the average was actually 31 points per game. And if we just look at regular-season conference games - so, not including the title game against Clemson - the number jumps to 33.6 points per game.

And if we slice it one more time to look at how the offense was producing before the Miami and Clemson games, the average flies all the way up to 38 points per game.

Pitt went into the regular-season finale average 38 points per game against ACC competition. That seems like a pretty good number.

Now, I know we can slice it other ways - ways that don’t reflect so favorably. And ultimately, if we’re judging the offense, we can’t slice and dice; we have to look at the whole season. And in the whole season, Pitt was No. 82 in scoring offense, No. 96 in total offense and No. 120 in passing offense. The only thing Pitt did well consistently was run the ball, and even that didn’t have 12-game consistency.

So, with those numbers in mind and plenty of memories of ineffective offense, fans and media have wondered what it means for the future of offensive coordinator Shawn Watson. Because, quite frankly, those numbers I just cited - they’re the kind of numbers that get coordinators fired.

USC fired Tee Martin this offseason; the Trojans were the inverse of Pitt on a rush/pass success rate, but they averaged more yards overall and just 0.5 points per game less than the Panthers. There was probably more at play in the USC situation - Clay Helton needed to save his job as head coach and Pat Narduzzi, fresh off winning the Coastal, isn’t there yet - but the point remains: those numbers got Martin fired.

10 years ago, in a situation that continues some eerie similarities dating back to the end of last season, Pitt fired Matt Cavanaugh after three years as offensive coordinator (or Cavanaugh chose to leave; either way, his time at Pitt was over). Pitt’s offense in 2008 averaged more yards per game and roughly the same points per game.

And the numbers are why Pat Narduzzi has to take a long, hard look at the direction and future of the offense. I’ve said as much before on multiple occasions. But the key angle I think will make his decision on Watson is the quarterback, sophomore Kenny Pickett.

Narduzzi has to ask himself two questions:

1. How big of a factor was Pickett’s youth and inexperience?

2. Can Watson develop Pickett as a quarterback?

If Narduzzi can put the bulk of the issues in the offense on Pickett’s inexperience and if he’s convinced Watson can develop Pickett, then the decision should be an easy one. If not, then it gets tougher for Pitt’s head coach.

For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think any change is coming. But as Narduzzi makes his offseason staffing decisions, it seems to me that Pickett is the key factor when it comes to the offensive coordinator.

The Syracuse game means a lot
We will probably debate this question endlessly, largely because it’s almost entirely a subjective judgment.

Has the 2018 season been a success?

We’ll be able to render a final verdict after the Sun Bowl, when we know if Pitt’s final record is 8-6 or 7-7, and I suspect that a strong showing in El Paso will convert a few votes for “non-success” to “success,” just as a loss will push people who are teetering on the edge.

But as I consider the question right now, with the Sun Bowl still three-plus weeks away, I can’t help thinking that the Syracuse game looms large in the debate. Basically, your opinion on that game probably correlates with your opinion on the season at large.

If you consider that to be a good win - and it was Pitt’s best win of the season - then you likely see the 2018 season as one defined by a tough nonconference slate, a convincing run through the Coastal Division leading to a division title and a disappointing showing in the final two games.

If you don’t think much of beating Syracuse, then you probably see this season as a series of nonconference embarrassments that couldn’t be overshadowed by a 6-2 record against a bottom-rung Power Five division.

There might be some overlap between those two camps, but I think it more or less breaks down along those lines.

Like I said, Syracuse does stand as Pitt’s best in 2018. That overtime game in October represents the Panthers’ only win over a team in the final College Football Playoff rankings (the Orange are No. 20), and Syracuse is Pitt’s highest-rated win in ESPN’s Football Power Index at No. 33 (interestingly, Georgia Tech, who also lost to Pitt, is No. 37 in the FPI).

Now, there can be some debate about how good Syracuse actually is. Dino Babers has gotten a lot of good publicity for his team’s 9-3 record this season, but the Orange built that record with three nonconference wins over Western Michigan, Wagner and UConn. Syracuse did beat No. 22 N.C. State 51-41, and while the early-season win over Florida State isn’t too impressive in 2018, the season-ending defeat of Boston College on the road is.

There’s a case to be made that Pitt could have produced a similar record to Syracuse if the Panthers played the same schedule as the Orange, but that horse does need another beating. Plus, there’s something to be said for Babers pulling his team together after the Pitt loss and winning five of the final six games to earn a spot in the Camping World Bowl against West Virginia.

So what do you make of the Syracuse game? Good win in overtime, a gutsy response to two brutal losses in the prior games? Or a poor excuse for a “best win of the season,” a point hammered home by the reality of that designation?

I guess another way to ask that would be, if that was the high-water mark, then how high was it, really?

The Sun Bowl is a great spot for Pitt
Pitt’s bowl game invitation was announced last Sunday, but I wanted to spend a minute on it here because I think that Pitt really couldn’t have done better.

I mean, sure, the Camping World Bowl against West Virginia would have been the No. 1 choice for all parties involved (while I think the Syracuse fans are excited after their big season, I think the Orlando version of the Backyard Brawl would have drawn better, but I digress). Short of that, the options were limited, and if Pitt was going to end up in one of the ACC’s Tier 1 bowls, it was probably going to be the Pinstripe Bowl against a Big Ten team or the Sun Bowl against the Pac-12.

I don’t think there was much to gain by sending Pitt to the Bronx again. The Panthers were just there two years ago, and while it’s a pretty easy trip to New York City, whether driving or flying, I don’t know that the fan base would have been all that motivated to go, especially not after the results of the last two games.

Plus, you know, it’s the Bronx in December. There are more appealing locales.

Now, I’ve not been to El Paso before. I missed the 2008 debacle against Oregon State. But west Texas presents something different for Pitt fans who want to make the trip - something they haven’t had an opportunity to experience in a decade, if they’re so inclined to travel.

But here’s the trick: Pitt fans don’t have to travel to El Paso. Sure, the people running the bowl would like the fans to travel and pay for tickets and hotel rooms and pump money into the local economy and all of that. But the best thing about the Sun Bowl is that they don’t need fans of the teams to come into town. The Sun Bowl is a big deal locally, with El Paso residents viewing the event as something of their own, an annual chance to watch two college football teams - any college football teams, it seems - play a game.

So it’s perfect. Pitt with its non-traveling-reputation fan base doesn’t have to fall short in the ticket-selling department, because the onus isn’t on the school to produce the numbers that other bowls might desire.

Plus, the Sun Bowl isn’t exactly a random, no-name bowl. The only current bowl that has been around longer than the Sun is the Rose Bowl, which became an annual game in 1916, whereas the Sun Bowl, the Sugar Bowl and the Orange Bowl debuted in 1935.

This is an historic bowl, one with some cache, or at least as much cache as a non-CFP bowl can garner these days. People recognize the Sun Bowl name, and even if it has had various sponsors attached over time - 10 years ago it was the Brut Sun Bowl; this year it’s the Hyundai Sun Bowl - people still know the name. It still rings out, so to speak.

And finally, it puts Pitt against a quality opponent. Bowl games against non-Power Five opponents accomplish very little. That’s true when you win, like Pitt did against Bowling Green in Detroit a few years ago, but it’s even truer when you lose to them like Pitt lost to SMU, Houston and Navy in recent years.

But a Pac-12 opponent in a bowl with a long history that doesn’t make too many demands on traveling fans…I don’t know, that sounds pretty darn ideal at this particular point in time.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Did Pitt hoops need a wake-up call?
There are some common sports clichés that I don’t know I’m fully on-board with.

I understand them. I know what people mean when they say them. I get the ideas that are being conveyed (or attempting to be conveyed). I just don’t know if they’re fully grounded in reality.

Like, a guy who can “take over a game;” whether it’s in football or basketball, I just think that’s a silly notion. First, no single guy in football can take over a game; nobody can (okay, maybe Aaron Donald can, but that’s about it in the current game). There are just too many moving parts, too many roles that rely on someone doing their job to make it work.

And in basketball, forget for a minute that there are five guys on the court, so even the guy who can “take over a game” has help from others around him. Beyond that, my contention has always been, if a guy can truly “take over a game,” why doesn’t he do it every night? How does his team ever lose?

In reality, some guys get hot, shoot well and make shots in the clutch. But it’s not an automatic thing, even for the most automatic players of all-time.

(The one exception in all of this is baseball; that’s truly the only team sport where one player - the pitcher - can take over and do it all by himself, although even he needs a catcher to get the ball back to him after every pitch.)

There are more of these clichés - a team that “knows how to win”, for instance, yet seemingly forgets that in every loss - where I get the point someone is making when they say it, but I just don’t think the cliché is grounded in reality.

I was thinking about that this week as we talked about the Pitt basketball team getting a “wake-up call.” Now, I don’t think Jeff Capel ever used that phrase. I don’t think the players did, either, but I’ll have to look over my transcript. I know I used it, though, because, clichéd as it may be, I think it was fitting.

Pitt did need a wake-up call. And the Panthers very much got one when they lost to Niagara on Monday night, a loss that, by the standards of things like RPI and KenPom.com, was worse than any loss suffered under the Kevin Stallings regime.

But this young team needed that. They may or may not admit it - and Jared Wilson-Frame kind of did admit it - but they were probably pretty high on themselves. They started off 6-0, lost a close one at Iowa in a game that probably had them feeling pretty good about themselves, no matter what was said in the press conferences. Then they blow out Duquesne in the second half to convincingly retain the City Game trophy.

7-1, getting a couple votes in the national polls, getting people talking about Pitt basketball, hearing that they were going to surprise some people in the ACC - yeah, they were probably feeling pretty good. And maybe, although purely on a subconscious level, there was some feeling that Niagara would be a pushover, that Pitt could walk onto the court and drive and dazzle its way to another convincing win to get to 8-1.

That didn’t happen, of course. What did happen was the young players on this team, the players who will be the foundation of whatever success is to come down the road, learned a very important lesson.

Two very important lessons, actually.

One, they learned that any team can beat any other team on any given night.

Two, they learned that they are not, as presently constructed, good enough to be casual about any game.

Those lessons will serve Pitt well this season. It would have been nice for the lessons to not carry the unfortunate mark of a loss to Niagara - a two-win team playing without its best player - but sometimes the most important lessons have to leave a mark, even if it’s a big purple one.

Are you still encouraged?
This is a question for you, but you can have my answer now:

Yes.

While Pitt’s freshmen have hit some rocky points at times, those don’t overshadow what these three have done for the majority of their time as Panthers. Sure, Xavier Johnson, Trey McGowens and Au’Diese Toney combined for 13 turnovers against Niagara, but they also accounted for 43 of Pitt’s 70 points. Toney was the only Pitt player with more than three rebounds in the game. McGowens had a game-high four steals. And Johnson scored a game-high 19 points - his ninth double-digit performance in as many games.

So yeah, it’s encouraging.

And beyond those production numbers, which are impressive, there were the actual performances. Like in the second half, after Niagara used a 26-10 run to turn Pitt’s four-point lead into a 12-point lead of its own, the Panthers didn’t crawl away. They fought back.

Johnson, in particular, was the one who responded. He grabbed a defensive rebound and converted a fast-break layup. Then he grabbed a steal that led to a fast-break layup by Jared Wilson-Frame, and Johnson followed that with a jumper and a three-point shot that produced a 9-0 run.

As we all know, that run eventually led to Pitt getting within one point before a trio of good looks at the basket - including one by Johnson at the buzzer - all fell short of going in and winning the game. But there was something about the comeback; this is probably a clichéd thing to say, but I don’t know if last year’s team mounts that comeback. I don’t know if last year’s team turns that 12-point deficit into a one-point final score with three chances to win.

Maybe it’s the coach, maybe it’s the players - I think it’s a combination of all three - but this team is clearly different and these freshmen, particularly Johnson, are clearly laying a foundation for the future.

So even when they lose to Niagara or whoever else they lose to, I feel like the bigger picture is going to be a bit easier to keep in focus. This season is about learning lessons like the ones I mentioned in the last section. This season is about rebuilding Pitt basketball - not in the fun way of winning lots of games, but rather in the uglier and ultimately more important way of learning how to play at this level.

They’re going to have to put in some hard work this season, take some punches and get back up for more. It’s not going to be easy; the Niagara game showed what can happen to this team on any given night. But as long as the players keep working, they’re going to continue to put the pieces into place for future success.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt won’t lose a commitment
Now, predictions on recruiting are almost as much of a crapshoot as predictions on game outcomes, because if there’s anything more predictable than the bounces of a football, it’s the whims and inclinations of a teenager.

That said, I think I can make a prediction here. As I type this, Pitt sits at 20 commitments for the class of 2019, and with the early signing period less than two weeks away - Wednesday, Dec. 19, is the first day recruits can sign - I look at those 20 and think that just about every one of them will sign that day.

The only one who won’t be signing that day is Brandon Mack, a three-star defensive end from Alabama who committed to Pitt while he was in town for an official visit in June. At the time he committed, he said he planned to take additional official visits, and while the Pitt coaches were against it, Mack has gone ahead with that plan.

He took an official visit to Missouri last weekend, he’ll visit FAU this weekend and he has a visit planned to Ole Miss for late January. That’s a lot of visiting for a recruit who is “committed,” but Mack maintains that he has not decommitted and that he has been open and honest with the Pitt coaches throughout the process. Pat Narduzzi and his staff may not like it, but they have Mack high enough on their board to go through the process with him.

Given the timeline, Mack isn’t going to sign until February so a lot can change between now and then, but as of the first week of December, I think the odds favor him signing with Pitt when the time comes. The way I see it, if Mack’s interest in Pitt was truly waning, he would have decommitted. But that hasn’t happened. The fact that he has not gone that route reflects on his relationship with cornerbacks coach Archie Collins and the experience he had on his official visit to Pitt.

From Mack’s perspective - and the perspective of those around him - he simply committed too soon without considering all of his options, so that’s what he’s doing: seeing his options. I think he’ll go through that process and, as long as Pitt doesn’t fill up and tell him his spot is taken, I think he’ll be a Panther.

The same goes for Bryce Nelms. He was on the official visit weekend with Mack and committed, too. Both commitments were a surprise since both recruits seemed to be targeting commitment dates down the road.

Nelms was particularly surprising since he was considered a Rutgers lean prior to the Pitt visit, and even his high school coach was shocked (and maybe a little disappointed) by the news that he had committed. After Nelms committed, pressure mounted to get him to take an official visit to Rutgers, and he did that earlier this fall.

Despite Rutgers being the in-state school and some pressure around him to pick the Scarlet Knights, I think he’ll stay with Pitt. Like Mack, he hasn’t decommitted, and I think that’s significant; if he was really down on Pitt, if his interest was really fading there and he was leaning toward another school, I think he would have decommitted.

But he hasn’t. And while he has said he will let everyone know his decision on signing day (Dec. 19), it seems to me that if there was truly a decision to make that day, he would have decommitted from Pitt and sat down with two hats on the table (“hats on the table” being a catchphrase from The Wire’s unaired sixth season, which dealt with high school recruiting).

Nelms hasn’t done that. He took a look at Rutgers and came out of that visit still committed to Pitt. I’m sure the Pitt coaches will be sweating Nelms’ and Mack’s decisions, but I think the odds favor them staying with the Panthers.