In the first 3-2-1 Column of training camp, we're thinking about the start of camp, preseason rankings, Pitt's transfers and more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

The start of camp

Pitt opened training camp on Wednesday, and we’ve been churning out a ton of content from Pat Narduzzi’s press conference plus a lot of interviews with the players and coaches.

Here are a few more quotes from Narduzzi that seem like they’re worth highlighting.

“This is the best time of the year. Now, January to, I guess, really, June, that's probably the worst time of the year, but right now when you're talking about August, this is the best time of the year. This is what we live for.”

I don’t know; June is pretty fun. But I get what Narduzzi is saying, and while I think coaches have always looked forward to the start of camp and the start of the season, I think this point on the calendar has become even more appealing in recent years.

And the reason I say this is, the role of the head coach has increasingly grown to be something of a general manager. Between the transfer portal and NIL - and the introduction of revenue-sharing in the very near future - it’s not just about coaching football anymore.

I mean, it hasn’t been just about coaching football for a long time. The January-June offseason period was always dominated by recruiting and team management. But now, as coaches spend a big chunk of that time working to re-recruit their own rosters, it seems like they have even less time to spend on simply coaching football.

So when August arrives and the roster is about as set as it’s going to be and the days are completely dedicated to what happens on the field…well, I imagine that has to be a bit of a relief for a head coach.

“Really, roster sizes are going down for football.”

I thought this was an interesting point. So much talk this offseason has been about expanding scholarship rosters by removing scholarship limits, but Narduzzi pointed out something that hasn’t been talked about as much.

While the NCAA, as part of the House settlement, is removing scholarship limits, they’re also changing the overall roster limits, and for football, the number is going down. Narduzzi said Pitt has 120 players in camp right now with a goal of being at 117 for the start of the fall semester.

The new roster limit will be 105, so the number is going down - even if the number of allowable scholarships has gone up.

Football is a bit unique in this regard, as most sports are seeing their roster limits increase. Either way, it feels like few programs - in all sports - will actually use the full allotment of scholarships, for a variety of reasons.

“I can tell you this: If you have 105 scholarships after the season, you're going to have a lot more guys jumping in the portal because they're going, I am not playing here. It's just 105 is a lot.

“It’ll be hard to find 105 guys competitive enough to play and do what we want and need to do to win a championship here. That doesn't solve things. We need to figure it out, and I think everybody is going to have a little bit different style. Some people might say, ‘I want 97, I don't want 105.’ Some people might say, ‘I want as many as I can get.’ So we'll find out how that whole thing is going to roll, but there's a lot to think about, and I just don't really want to think about it right now; I want to coach football.”

Which brings us back to the point that we started with here:

Finally, Narduzzi and the rest of the team - coaches and players alike - get to just focus on football.

“I know there's a lot of talent. There's more talent on this football team than we had a year ago, but it might be younger.”

I don’t know if there’s more talent on Pitt’s 2024 roster than the 2023 roster. Maybe, maybe not.

But I think Narduzzi hit the relevant point at the end there - It might be younger.

There’s definitely some young talent, and I think that’s particularly true on defense. Pitt is replacing starters at nine positions on that side of the ball - basically everybody other than the safeties.

The entire defensive line will have new starters. All three linebackers will be first-year starters. And both cornerback spots will be filled by new starters. I like a lot of the players who should be stepping into those roles - especially at linebacker - but there’s no denying the youth.

“I think he's got a great grasp of what we're doing right now. Last year compared to where he is now, it would be a question for him today, just where is your knowledge base. I bet you he was coming out of camp last year probably a 5, then he went up to a 7 or 8, and I'd say he's 9 or 10 right now. He's got to feel pretty confident in what we're doing and how we're doing it, which then allows him to take that next step and start leading.”

There aren’t many players I’m higher on heading into the season than Donovan McMillon, and from the sounds of it, Narduzzi is pretty high on him, too. Saying that McMillon is "9 or 10” when it comes to knowledge of the defense is high praise from Narduzzi, and I think he gets especially excited when he has a smart, physical safety (or safeties) he can trust.

McMillon is that kind of player for Pitt this season.

MORE COVERAGE FROM TRAINING CAMP - Camp report: What stood out on the first day? | Slideshow: 52 photos from the first practice | Video: Narduzzi holds his opening press conference of camp | Narduzzi: "There's always competition" | Pitt's players and coaches have something to prove in 2024 | The Morning Pitt: Thoughts on the first day of camp | Ask the players: What will make the offense better in 2024? | Ask the players: Who are the young players and newcomers to watch? | PODCAST: Breaking down the first day of camp

It is what it is - preseason poll edition

The ACC’s preseason media poll was released Wednesday, and you had to scroll pretty far to find Pitt.

All the way down to No. 13, actually. That’s where Pitt ended up. Directly behind Syracuse, Duke and Cal. Directly ahead of Boston College, Wake Forest and Virginia.

No first-place votes, of course. Those were reserved for the likes of Georgia Tech and Boston College and the aforementioned Cal Golden Bears (those teams won six, six and seven games, respectively, last season).

Yes, those teams really did receive first-place votes. Georgia Tech and Boston College got one each. Cal got two.

The rest of the media fell in line, throwing most of the love to Florida State and Clemson alongside the requisite first-place votes for Miami and Virginia Tech as well as this year’s preseason darling, N.C. State (occupying the space typically reserved for North Carolina).

Pretty standard stuff, with Louisville, SMU and the aforementioned Georgia Tech and Cal rounding out the top 10 and Duke and Syracuse next in line before we get to Pitt.

I don’t think anybody is surprised by that, right? On the message board a week or two ago, I asked where Pitt fans expected the Panthers to be ranked in the preseason poll, and the guesses were all between 12 and 15 or generally in the bottom third of the 17-team conference.

(Special shout-out to posters BethlehemJohn and smenges who both called the lucky No. 13.)

Like I said, it’s no surprise. This is what happens when you go 3-9 and make no major notable additions in the offseason. If you listed the 15 or maybe even 20 most notable transfer additions in the ACC this year, I’m not sure you would see a single Pitt player.

So you’ve got a three-win team with no clear improvements made. The only real noticeable change was the turnover of the entire offensive coaching staff, and while that - plus a little less badness at quarterback - should be a net positive, attrition is hardly going to earn preseason votes.

Put another way, this is where you find yourself when you go 3-9.

Seven years ago, as Pitt was slogging through the month of September 2017, I wrote one of these 3-2-1 Columns and took on the theme of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, the great Derek and the Dominos’ one-off album featuring, among others, Eric Clapton and Duane Allman.

Every section in the column borrowed its heading from a song title on that album. While writing of the team’s need to develop its young players, I used “Keep on Growing.” On the subject of what Pitt needed most at that point, I went with “Key to the Highway.”

And in the first section of the column, I talked about how Pitt’s struggles had relegated the Panthers’ - less than a year removed from their stirring, attention-getting win at Clemson - to nationwide irrelevance.

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out

That’s how it goes. Unless you’re a big-time brand name, when you’re down, you’re out, and nobody will give you the benefit of the doubt to predict your bounce-back.

So that’s where Pitt finds itself. Down, out and unknown. But that’s not the worst place to be, particularly for a team that’s taking “Prove it” as its motto for the season.

It is what it is - rankings edition

As Rivals has worked to adapt to the new world of college sports, the decision was made to release a new comprehensive team recruiting ranking that incorporates transfers.

Rather than the old-world style of simply ranking recruiting classes, the Rivals analysts ranked the teams’ transfer classes, too, and then combined them into one comprehensive ranking in an attempt to order which teams really make the best collective group of additions this offseason.

You’ll likely be shocked to learn that plucky upstarts Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia sit at the top of the rankings, with the likes of Oregon, Texas, Miami - the one in Florida, not Ohio - Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Florida State and Auburn rounding out the top 10.

Same old, same old.

Pitt came in at No. 47 overall and No. 9 in the ACC.

Not exactly inspiring numbers, but - like the preseason ACC rankings - not exactly surprising either.

That’s basically where Pitt recruits: inside the top 50, but not too far inside the top 50. Pat Narduzzi has had two classes ranked inside the top 30 (2016 and 2021) and two ranked outside the top 50 (2022 and 2023), with the other four (2017-20) ranked in the 36-49 range.

That’s where they make their living. Pitt’s 2024 high school recruiting class actually ranked No. 37, but the incorporation of transfers dropped it down 10 spots to 47 overall.

No surprises, right? Pitt’s transfer class was not full of highly-rated players - like we mentioned above, that’s probably part of the reason the Panthers aren’t generating more preseason hype - and Rivals ranked their 15-man transfer class at No. 48 nationally.

Honestly, I don’t have a problem with those rankings. They’re fine. The most productive transfers Pitt added came from the FCS level (the three skill players from Western Carolina) or Ohio University, and the power-conference transfers have little in the way of resumes.

As is often the case with Pitt recruiting, the coaches think they see something that leads them to believe these transfers will be a good fit for what the Panthers need. Other teams might not see it, but those other teams might not have the same needs or be looking for the same fit.

This is how Pitt recruits under Narduzzi: finding the players who fit the best. They’ve done a pretty good job of that, too, regularly turning three-stars into very good players. I actually don’t know if this staff gets enough credit for how much success they’ve had while mostly building the rosters with three-stars.

Like I mentioned earlier, the 2017-20 recruiting classes ranked between 36 and 49 nationally. And yet, those were the classes that built Pitt’s ACC championship team.

Not bad for living outside the top 35 nationally.

Now, you would rather not spend all your time there. Every now and then, it would be nice to see what life is like inside the top 25, maybe for a few years in a row. Who knows? That might work out pretty well.

But that’s not where Pitt is. It’s not where Pitt recruits. And it’s not the level of player they’re bringing in. Narduzzi and his staff rely on evaluation and development, and if a staff is largely spending its time in the 35-50 range, then they better be right on their evaluation and development.

A lot of times over the last nine years, they’ve been right.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Why do we do this?

I understand why Pitt’s recruiting class and transfer class are ranked where they are. There are no surprises there, and when I saw that a comprehensive ranking had been released, the Panthers were pretty much where I expected them to be.

But that’s not to say I don’t have issues with it.

I’m not talking about the recruits. I mostly get why the recruits are ranked as they are. There are some exceptions and guys I think Rivals missed on - there always are - but the thing I don’t get is the transfers.

How are we ranking transfers?

Rivals isn’t the only outlet that does this, so this isn’t a criticism directed at the mothership.

But seriously, how are we ranking transfers when so many of them have seen little or no playing time?

Look, if it’s a high-profile guy like Jordan Addison or players like Dayon Hayes or Solomon DeShields, I get it. Those guys played a lot. Even some of Pitt’s incoming transfers have solid resumes that can be evaluated and judged.

But take someone like Eli Holstein or Jaremiah Anglin. What are we evaluating there? Those guys are redshirt freshmen who didn’t play a single snap last season. I suppose we have high school film to evaluate since they’re only one year removed, but in that case, shouldn’t Holstein just carry his four-star ranking from high school? Ditto for David Ojiegbe, a highly-touted recruit in the 2023 class who played just a handful of snaps at Clemson last season; shouldn’t he still be a four-star?

If the answer is, Well, we can’t say they’re still four-stars since we haven’t seen them since high school, my response would be, Well, what are we evaluating them on, then? There’s certainly no new film, no new information, nothing new to judge.

Lyndon Cooper started five games at N.C. State. Tamon Lynum played like 100 snaps at Nebraska. Nick James saw spot duty. Chief Borders is changing positions. Anthony Johnson is coming from FCS.

What are we doing?

I understand there’s a desire for the content. People see their favorite teams adding transfers and they want to know if those players are any good. They can read stats or look at video, but getting a ranking from someone is the easiest, most streamlined way to find out.

So the rankings are produced, and I understand why. But boy, I think it’s a stretch when so many are largely unseen and unknown.

Oh, and there’s a thousand or two transfers in the portal. Seems like a Herculean (or even impossible) task.

But as the transfer portal becomes a more and more prominent means of player acquisition, it’s a task that must be attempted.

Which Pitt transfers will play the most?

Setting the rankings aside, which of Pitt’s 15 transfers should we expect to see on the field this season?

Here are a few I think have a really good chance of getting playing time. Let’s start with the offense:

Desmond Reid, Censere Lee and Raphael Williams - The three Western Carolina guys (Williams still counts as a Catamount - he Cata-counts? - even if he came directly from San Diego State). They all know the offense and they’ve all put up big numbers in the offense, and they’ve done so because they’re explosive playmakers. They’re not big, but they’re fast; that plus their knowledge of the offense will help them get some action.

Lyndon Cooper - The N.C. State offensive line transfer is going to find a role, either as a starting interior lineman or a top reserve.

Eli Holstein - We’ll come back to this one in a minute.

And here are a few on defense.

Anthony Johnson and Chief Borders - A pair of late adds as spring transfers, Johnson and Borders join a defensive line group looking for players to step into prominent roles. There are several returning players who will be in the mix, as well as a couple transfers who arrived in January, but Johnson and Borders are physically mature and physically gifted, and they will likely find themselves in starting jobs or, at the very least, contributing reserve roles.

Keye Thompson - Unfortunately, Thompson missed the entire spring due to injury. But he was a tackling machine at Ohio and will likely work in a rotation at middle linebacker with Brandon George.

Tamon Lynum or Jaremiah Anglin - It’s possible Pitt could fill its two-deep at cornerback with returning players, but I think one of these two transfers (Lynum from Nebraska or Anglin from Kentucky) will get on the depth chart. Aside from Ryland Gandy, it feels like the cornerback spots are pretty wide open, so the opportunity is there for everyone - including the transfers.

We also can’t ignore special teams: UConn transfer Nilay Upadhyayula will be Pitt’s starting long-snapper this season, and Ben Sauls told me on Wednesday that he feels like he’s got great chemistry in the operation group of Upadhyayula and holder Cam Guess.

ONE PREDICTION

Both quarterbacks will play against Kent State

I’ve been pretty certain and definitive about Nate Yarnell being Pitt’s starting quarterback in 2024, and I’m not backing off of that.

But…

I don’t think it’s lip service when Pat Narduzzi says there will be an open competition between Yarnell and Eli Holstein (and Ty Diffenbach, for that matter, if he’s up to the task).

And what I’m coming around on is the idea that the competition might last awhile. All through camp, perhaps, and maybe even into the season.

In fact, I’m predicting that the coaches will give Yarnell and Holstein enough of an opportunity to win the job that they’ll carry it into the season opener against Kent State on Aug. 31.

Nine years ago, in Narduzzi’s first game as head coach at Pitt, the Panthers used something of a quarterback rotation in the season opener against Youngstown State. Incumbent starter Chad Voytik took the first two possessions before Tennessee transfer Nate Peterman came in for the next two drives.

Peterman threw an interception on the first play of his second drive, and that ended his day, as Voytik worked the rest of the game. But in Week Two at Akron, the rotation returned. Voytik was on for the first two drives, then Peterman for two and back to Voytik for the fifth possession.

Pitt was trailing Akron 7-3 at that point, but on the final drive of the first half, Peterman led the Panthers on a 73-yard touchdown drive.

Pitt never trailed again and Peterman never came off the bench again. He started Pitt’s next 24 games - which might have been the intention all along.

Throughout training camp that summer, it was clear that Narduzzi and - especially - offensive coordinator Jim Chaney were looking for Peterman to win the job, and they carried that into the season with the rotation at quarterback.

I’m not saying that Narduzzi and Kade Bell have a similar mindset with Holstein, but I do think they are trying to stay very open to the possibility of the Alabama transfer knocking off Pitt’s returning starter.

This comes, of course, after Yarnell was one of Pitt’s representatives at ACC media days and got one of the featured seats at Pitt’s own media day this week.

But he wasn’t the only quarterback in the room on Wednesday; Holstein was there, too. That seems somewhat notable.

It’s entirely possible that, at some point in camp, Narduzzi will name Yarnell the No. 1 quarterback and the starter. I kind of expect it, to be honest. But I also think there’s a really good chance Holstein finds himself on the field in that season opener, and not just late in the fourth quarter of a blowout (because, let’s be honest: Pitt’s probably not going to put in enough of the offense to deliver a blowout).