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In the final 3-2-1 Column before the start of the season, we’re talking about what to expect from Pitt in 2020 - and what the Panthers should achieve this fall.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
The season
Well, here we are.
The 2020 season is, somehow, some way, by hook or by crook or by a little bit of both, upon us. Depending on when you read this, Pitt will be in the neighborhood of 24 hours or so away from opening its fall slate of games, and I never thought we’d get here.
That’s a common refrain these days as the ACC, SEC and Big 12 - most of it, at least - gear up to start one of the most improbable seasons in my lifetime and probably yours.
But the how and the why of our arrival at this point is secondary now. Down the road, there will be oral histories of the decision-making processes behind the scenes of the ACC and the SEC and the Big 12 and Notre Dame, and we can revisit the last six months when we reach that point in the future.
For now, the season is upon us, and once again we’ll go the only place you can when the season is about to start.
We’ll talk expectations.
For Pitt in 2020, your expectations depend heavily on what you believe the Panthers’ offense is capable of achieving. If you think Mark Whipple and Kenny Pickett and the offensive line and the skill players are all poised to take a step forward, then you’re probably looking at eight wins minimum with an eye on nine.
If you think Whipple and Pickett and the line and the skill guys have shown us who they are enough times that we should believe them, then you’re probably leaning to the low side if someone offered you over/under on 6.5 wins.
Me? I’ve said before that I am inclined to think this offense does get better, based on the experience the players got last season and some of the things we’ve heard - on and off the record - coming out of training camp.
But despite being somewhat bullish on the offense, even I admit that I don’t know if I can go all in on a 9-2 record. That would mean 8-2 in the ACC, and to get to that record, Pitt has to do something it hasn’t done in quite some time.
Be a consistently good team. Not great, but consistently good.
I’ve laid out the way I see this season a few times before, but I’ll do it again so we’re all on the same page. I think you can break Pitt’s 10 conference games into three groups. There are the should-win games, which would be Syracuse, N.C. State, Boston College and Georgia Tech. There are the tough-to-win games, which would be Clemson and Notre Dame. And there are the toss-up games, which are Louisville, Miami, Florida State and Virginia Tech.
The fate of this season will be determined by what happens in those last four games I mentioned.
While I acknowledge that anything can happen and we have seen both sides of the coin in the last four years, let’s assume that things go as they should and Pitt wins the four “should-win” games (Syracuse, N.C. State, Boston College and Georgia Tech) and loses the two “tough-to-win” games (Notre Dame and Clemson). That puts the Panthers at 4-2, and it sets up those four “toss-up” games as the deciding factors in the season. Which means Pitt is going to have to really be consistent to produce what most would consider a “good” season.
Because even 2-2 against Louisville, Miami, Florida State and Virginia Tech puts you at 6-4 in the conference, which means 7-4 overall; would anybody be thrilled with 7-4? 3-1 in those four games is probably the minimum for a “good” season, as I think most Pitt fans would accept 8-3.
But why shouldn’t this team get over the top a little bit? Why shouldn’t we expect Pat Narduzzi’s sixth Pitt roster to go out and beat not just the teams they’re supposed to beat but also the teams they are more or less even with? Not one of those four “toss-up” games is unwinnable; Pitt can match up with each of those teams.
Games like those are won not by the better team that season, necessarily, but by the better team that day. Why can’t Pitt be the better team on those four days when it’s facing a more or less equal opponent? Why can’t Pitt be the team that shows up?
Look, I realize 9-2 is probably a bit too optimistic for most people, but hey, it’s the preseason. No games have been played to dash your illusions, so let them run wild, if only for the next 24 hours.
Modest gains for major goals
Okay, 9-2 is a big goal to have. That means beating everybody other than Clemson and Notre Dame, and while you don’t have to be a top-5 team to pull that off, it does mean you have to play pretty well on a weekly basis to put in that kind of consistent effort.
But here’s the thing:
I don’t think this team has to improve too much to make a significant leap in on-field results.
That’s kind of been a theme for me all offseason, particularly when discussing the offense. I’ve said, more than a few times, that Pitt’s offense just needs to get a little better, just clean up a few details and play just a little crisper to really push the results in a positive direction.
If you’ve read these columns before or listened to the Panther-Lair Show podcast or the Panthers Insider Show on 93.7 The Fan, then you’ve heard me talk about correctable mistakes and how big of an issue that was last season.
In case you came in late, here are the numbers. I looked at dropped passes, interceptions, fumbles (lost or recovered) and procedure penalties, since those are four pretty correctable and largely unforced errors. In 13 games last season, Pitt’s offense committed 104 of those. That’s an average of eight per game.
Eight times per game, the Panthers shot themselves in the foot on offense. How many stalled drives and lost possessions and missed scoring opportunities came from those mistakes? A lot, I would say, and the more I looked at those errors, the more convinced I became that those things were the biggest problem for the offense in 2019.
Certainly, they weren’t the only problem. The run game, for instance, was a pretty big issue, and so was red zone scoring. But even those problems can trace some lineage back to the correctable mistakes.
And I think that “correctable” is a key word there, because there’s no reason a team can’t improve in all four of those areas I discussed. Ball security, either in avoiding turnovers or being more secure in catching passes, can be practiced and refined. So can the procedure penalties; the coaches can drill those things in practice.
So if Pitt can just get a little better in those areas, I think the improvement overall can be considerable. I’m going to talk later in this column about reasonable expectations for the offense and how much improvement that group can make, but that’s more about individual players improving.
As a whole, this offense should be able to get just a little bit better, just a little bit cleaner with things like penalties and drops and turnovers. And if they get just a little bit better, then I think that little bit of improvement can turn into a lot of success.
Stat leaders
Let’s look at a few stats and see who we think will lead Pitt in each of these categories.
Passing is an easy one; barring injury or some other cause for missing games, Kenny Pickett will be the leading passer. But what about rushing? That’s a bit trickier.
Honestly, if we are sitting here at the end of November and talking about A.J. Davis being the leading rusher, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Nor would I be surprised to learn that Vincent Davis was the leading rusher.
Or Todd Sibley.
Or Israel Abanikanda.
Or Daniel Carter.
Take your pick. It could be any of them.
My guess is it will be A.J. Davis, just as the senior in the group who will probably get the most carries, but I don’t have strong feelings for any of those five backs. Each of them has his own unique attributes, and I’m quite intrigued by just about all of them. My guess is we’ll see a real committee approach and the leading rusher will end up with 600 yards or so but a few other guys will have 400 or 500, something like that.
As far as receptions, my gut says that Shocky Jacques-Louis steps into the “throw it to him every other play” role that Maurice Ffrench filled last year. Ffrench turned that heavy usage into a Pitt record for single-season receptions despite missing two games; I don’t know if Jacques-Louis will catch 90 passes or not, since I believe the targets will be more spread out than they were a year ago, but I think he’ll get a lot of balls thrown his way.
The key with Jacques-Louis is staying healthy. He has missed five games in the last two seasons and been limited for even more than that; if he can be at or near 100% all season long, he can catch a lot of passes and make a lot of plays.
The dark horse here is Jordan Addison. Pitt has actually had two players lead their teams in receiving as freshmen this century: Larry Fitzgerald in 2002 and Tyler Boyd in 2013. I don’t know if Addison is on the level of Fitzgerald and Boyd, but the hype for him coming out of training camp has been considerable enough that we have to at least mention him as a candidate.
Switching to defense, we’ll talk about tackles a little later in the column so I’ll skip that for now and go to the next category: sacks.
This is an interesting one to me. Jaylen Twyman led the team last year with 10.5 sacks, but obviously he is gone after choosing to opt out of the 2020 season, and as I’ve said before, it probably wasn’t too likely he would repeat as the team leader. Pass-rushing defensive tackles are great, but that’s a tough position to produce big numbers consistently; even Aaron Donald’s sack production has fluctuated in his pro career (even if you’re going between “really good” and “insanely good” numbers, it’s still a variation).
Even if Twyman had returned, I don’t think he would be my pick as the sack leader for 2020. I think the favorite has to be one of the defensive ends. I’m leaning toward Patrick Jones; he had 8.5 sacks last year, but he was one of the best in the ACC and the nation in pressures, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he converts more of those pass-rush opportunities into sacks this year. If he does, his numbers should soar into double digits.
There’s also Rashad Weaver to watch. He’s back after missing 2019 due to an ACL injury, and I think he’s got something to prove. He was The Man in 2018 and was expected to be the linchpin of the defense last season; now, after Twyman’s breakout campaign and the emergence of Jones as a potential high draft pick, Weaver is something of a forgotten man. I think he’ll take that as motivation and play with some extra fire this season.
There’s also a dark horse option in the outside linebackers. I don’t know if Cam Bright or Phil Campbell will get double-digit sacks, but I think those guys are going to really impress this season. I actually picked Bright as my under-the-radar player of the preseason; he isn’t getting a lot of attention, but I think he could be in line for a really impressive year after finishing last season as Pitt’s No. 3 tackler.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
How much improvement can you expect?
So I think we’re all in general agreement that the key to the 2020 season comes down to Pitt’s offense. If that group plays at a high level - or at least at a higher level than last season - then the Panthers have a shot at some real success.
But therein lies the big question: How much improvement can you realistically expect from the offense?
I’ve made the case, as recently as last week’s 3-2-1 Column, that I believe improvement is coming. With some experience on the offensive line and a third-year starter at quarterback and some talent at the skill positions, I believe this offense will be better in 2020 than it was in 2019, and I believe that the improvement will be considerable enough to produce an impressive win total.
I can make a good case for that happening; or, at the very least, I can say it in a really convincing manner. But there’s a truth that lies right beneath the surface of every case I make for the improvement of the offense, and that truth is this:
It’s all a leap of faith.
We don’t have any clear evidence that the offensive line will get better or that Kenny Pickett will take a step forward or that the skill players will be an upgrade over last year’s roster. The evidence we have is what we’ve seen when those players have been on the field, and that doesn’t exactly point toward an encouraging performance.
From these same players that Pitt will be relying on this season, we saw an offense in 2019 that was actually worse than it had been in 2018, when Shawn Watson was fired because the offense wasn’t good enough. We saw these players execute an offense that averaged 21.2 points per game. We saw these players score 20 points or less in eight of the team’s 13 games.
We saw these players produce an offense that floundered so much that cost the team two should-have-been wins (Miami and Boston College). That’s the difference between 7-5 and 9-3 in the regular season.
Imagine how we would reflect on the 2019 season if that team had gone 9-3. It would probably be quite different from how we view it right now, and that’s almost entirely on those offensive players.
The same players Pitt will be relying on this season.
The same players I’m assuming will be better this year.
It’s a leap of faith, and it’s not based on much beyond, “Well, those guys played a lot last year so they should be better this year.”
Or, in the case of some of the skill players, “Well, they look like they should be pretty good.”
That’s not a whole lot to go on. But that’s pretty much all we’ve got as we try to figure out what to expect from this year’s Pitt team.
Can Davis lead Pitt in tackles?
Pitt’s first official depth chart of the season came out on Monday, and there were a few surprises. For starters, Jordan Addison’s name was all over the place, although I don’t know how much of a surprise that was, given the praise we’ve heard for him throughout camp.
There was also the absence of Nick Patti, Pitt’s most veteran backup quarterback, although Pat Narduzzi said something or other about an injury, which seems to be the standing explanation for his not appearing on the two-deep.
But one of the most notable changes from what we expected to see was at middle linebacker, where redshirt sophomore Wendell Davis is listed as the starter. We had heard some rumblings here and there that seemed to indicate Davis was having a good training camp, but I don’t know if I expected him to end up ahead of redshirt senior Chase Pine.
Maybe that speaks to Pine’s inconsistency, but I’m inclined to lean to the other side and say it’s an endorsement of Davis and his potential. Which brings me to this question:
Can Davis lead the team in tackles?
I mean, he’s the starting middle linebacker in a 4-3 defense, so that question shouldn’t be a crazy one to consider. But if you look at Pitt’s recent history, it would actually be something of an anomaly for the middle linebacker to end up as the team leader in tackles.
Seun Idowu was the last linebacker - outside or inside - to lead Pitt in tackles, and that was three years ago in 2017. Paris Ford led Pitt last year with 97 tackles and Damar Hamlin set the pace in 2018 with 90.
In 2016, Matt Galambos led the team in tackles with 85, so you’ve got a middle linebacker at the top of the list there, but part of that was due to Jordan Whitehead suffering a season-ending injury in the Clemson game. Whitehead had 65 tackles in nine games - an average of 7.2 tackles per game that was better than Galambos’ 6.5. So Galambos was the leading tackler, but that comes with a caveat, particularly since Whitehead had more than 100 tackles the previous season.
This isn’t just a product of Pat Narduzzi’s defense, either. Anthony Gonzalez led Pitt in tackles in 2014 but he was an outside linebacker, and safety Jason Hendricks was at the top of the stat sheet in 2012 and 2013. Max Gruder had a team-best 116 tackles in 2011, and while he was an inside linebacker, he wasn’t really a 4-3 middle linebacker since Todd Graham’s defense was built more like a 3-4. And the year before that, safety Dom DeCicco was the team leader in tackles.
So you have to go all the way back to 2009 to find the last 4-3 middle linebacker who led Pitt in tackles. It was Gruder that year, and he had 91.
That was a long time ago, and the days of H.B. Blades and Scott McKillop patrolling the field and piling up 120+ tackles are even longer ago.
Can Wendell Davis break that drought for the middle linebackers? I don’t know. But I have to say that I’m intrigued by the idea of Pitt getting a three-year starter at a crucial position on the defense, assuming Davis plays up to that level.
ONE PREDICTION
The season
Well, if we’re going to do a prediction, it has to be the season record, right?
Okay, here goes. But first…
I think there are generally three categories that season predictions fall into. There’s the prediction of what a team will do. There’s the prediction of what a team should do. And the prediction of what a team needs to do for the season to be a success.
For the most part, those second and third categories will overlap, but they can diverge often enough that I’ll keep them as separate. Take, for instance, a rebuilding team like Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets went 3-9 last season; they should expect to increase that win total this year, but it’s hard to imagine the GT faithful viewing a four-win season or a five-win season as a success. So there would be a difference in predicting what Georgia Tech should do and what would constitute a successful season.
For Pitt, on the other hand, I think those two categories are the same. I said earlier that I believe this team is capable of going 8-2 in the ACC and 9-2 overall. I think they’re talented enough to pull that off, and if they do, that record should get them to Charlotte for the ACC Championship Game, which would be their second in three years.
That’s what they should do, and if they do it, it would be a success. Because, to be honest, I am of the opinion that this season is only a success if the Panthers make it to the ACC Championship Game.
But is that what I believe Pitt will do?
That’s a trickier question.
It’s not that I don’t think they can do it. Like I said, I believe Pitt is capable of going 9-2. The problem is in the near-perfection that record would require. It would mean the Panthers had no slip-ups against the lower end of the schedule and it would mean a perfect sweep of those toss-up games (or, failing that, a win against Notre Dame or Clemson to make up for a loss in a toss-up game).
And while I could see Pitt winning each of those four toss-ups, I just can’t quite get to the point of predicting that the Panthers will play consistently enough to make it happen.
Really, considering that Pitt lost to Boston College last year and North Carolina the year before that, when those teams were in the bottom third of the ACC teams the Panthers faced, it’s not a given that Pitt takes care of business against Syracuse, N.C. State, Georgia Tech and Boston College.
I’m willing to go out on that limb, though; I think the Panthers will handle those four. And then I’m predicting that they will go 3-1 in the toss-up games to get to 7-3 (while not ruling out 2-2 plus a win over Notre Dame balancing it out). If Pitt goes 3-1 in that set of games, it’s not terrible; beating at least three of Virginia Tech, Louisville, Florida State and Miami will look pretty solid.
Similarly, an 8-3 record would look pretty solid, too. I don’t think it will get you to Charlotte, so it would fall short of the bar of “success,” but it would be a good record in a weird season.
So that’s my prediction. We’ll see how that goes.
