The 3-2-1 Column: Uniforms, the spring game and more

MORE HEADLINES - Narduzzi previews the spring game | Video: Narduzzi on the spring draft, the Blue-Gold Game and more | What does the two-deep look like after Pitt's final spring practices? | Pitt TE coach Tim Salem breaks down the tight ends | What does new OC Mark Whipple think of the Panthers' offense?

In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're talking about Pitt's new uniforms, Saturday's Blue-Gold Game and a lot more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Give the people what they want
One common theme has existed in Pitt’s spring games over the past few years:

They’re not very exciting.

17-10, 19-17, 23-14 (a real points explosion that year) and 10-3. Those are the scores of the four Blue-Gold Games since Pat Narduzzi became Pitt’s head coach. A grand total of 11 offensive touchdowns have been scored in those four games, with last year’s contest decided on a defensive touchdown.

At least the weather was nice for those four Saturday’s.

Now, not all spring games have to feature 60 points from each team or even 60+ points combined. Clemson’s spring game last week was a 30-10 score and Heisman hopeful Trevor Lawrence threw for 232 yards and one touchdown.

Except he did almost all of that in the first half, giving the Clemson fans plenty to be excited about (because, you know, that fan base is starved for optimism at this point).

The Tigers’ reserves took over in the second half, and that’s fine; that’s what you expect from a spring game. But the best thing a fan can get from a Saturday afternoon in April is a reassurance that their favorite team’s top-line players are going to be really good.

Specifically, that their favorite team’s top-line offensive players are going to be really good. And let’s be honest, no matter how much people want to proclaim otherwise about themselves, it’s much more fun watching deep passes and big plays on offense than it is to watch a good old-fashioned defensive battle with middling performances from the offenses.

Sure, everybody wants to believe their defense will be good, and Pitt fans, who have watched some rough defensive performances in the last four years, are no different. They have some strong desires for the 2019 Panthers to be a stout defensive squad.

Just not in the spring game.

Nobody walked out of last year’s 10-3 barnburner and said, “Well, at least we know the defense will be good.” It was more along the lines of, “Well, one half of Pitt’s offensive players just combined for 22 net yards.”

Let’s face it: nobody wants to see 11 punts in a spring game, but that’s what Pitt fans got last year. And that wasn’t unique: in the last four spring games, Pitt fans have been treated to a whopping total of 45 punts.

45.

Add in 13 field goal attempts and you’ve got 58 offensive drives that didn’t end in touchdowns or turnovers (those are acceptable; at least they’re big plays by one side of the ball).

So if you attended each of Pitt’s last four spring games, you saw, on average, 14 punts or field goals and fewer than three offensive touchdowns per game.

Maybe there’s a question of what purpose a spring game ultimately serves. Coaches don’t seem to put a lot of value in it as a “real” practice, since they drastically cut down on the available plays, formations and packages. So if it’s not a practice, then what’s it for? It seems to me - and this may appear to be revolutionary thinking, so bear with me - that maybe it’s an event for the fans, the people who stick with the team through all of the highs and lows, who were with you whether you’re upsetting the No. 2 team in the country or losing to North Carolina again.

Those fans are starved for football. They want football. They want Pitt football. They’re not going to get the real thing until August and they know that, but maybe, just maybe, Pitt could try to give them something exciting this Saturday, something to create just a little bit of buzz heading into the long offseason.

Especially this fan base, which suffered through some pretty brutal stretches of offense last season. Give them something to be excited about. Light up the scoreboard a little.

To draft or not to draft
Pitt held its annual spring game draft on Thursday, as four senior captains split between the blue and the gold drafted their teammates to build the best squads they could for the head-to-head nature of the Blue-Gold Game.

The Panthers have done this since Pat Narduzzi arrived in 2015, and it’s a tradition he brought from Michigan State, where Mark Dantonio introduced it to the Spartans.

Dantonio hasn’t done it the last two years, though, instead opting for a more “traditional” one’s-vs-two’s setup. I’m wondering if Narduzzi shouldn’t follow his mentor’s lead.

Look, I think the draft is fun. The players seem to enjoy it, and the selection order provides some interesting insights on what the players think of their teammates (more on that later). But we all know what happens when you start splitting up the teams like this.

At some positions, most specifically the offensive line, things get jumbled. Coaches constantly preach about finding cohesion on the line and the value of having the same five guys working together as much as possible so that they operate as a single unit.

Then they go into the spring with a five-man line made up of a few first-teamers and some second-teamers and maybe a third-teamer or two, and all that cohesion goes out the window.

A couple thoughts on this:

- Breaking up the offensive line like that makes it much harder to accomplish what I advocated for earlier: scoring a lot of points. The offenses have much tougher times moving the ball when the linemen are working out of their usual orders (that’s probably connected to those 45 punts over the last four spring games).

- Breaking up the offensive line also further emphasizes the point that the coaches place low priority on the spring game. As long as they get out of Saturday healthy, the staff will be happy. Like I said, I think they should shoot for something a little more lively, a little more exciting. But that’s apparently not the goal for coaching staffs.

- And finally, there’s a solution to this problem where the draft can work and the offensive lines can maintain some cohesion: separate the linemen into a first-team unit and a second-team unit, draft those as whole units and then let the two teams draft out the rest of the linemen individually.

That way you get five guys playing together in the spring game after playing together all spring.

That seems to make sense, but what do I know? I’m just sitting over here hoping for something better than a 7-3 game on Saturday.

For his part, Pat Narduzzi said he’d be just as pleased with 7-3 as he would with 58-52. He and I have different views on this.

One reason for the reaction
Because fashion is in our wheelhouse…

In the five days or so since Pitt rolled out its new uniforms, I wouldn’t say the reaction has been mixed. It has been overwhelmingly positive and favorable, and if there has been any nitpicking - and of course there has been - it has centered largely around small, minor details.

Like this: There are arches in the stripes on the pants of the football uniforms. They are only detectable up close, at least according to this 40-year-old’s eyes, and once you move a few yards away, you can’t see them.

On the field this season, I doubt the long-snapper will see the arches in the stripes on the punter’s leg, and I’m pretty sure you and I won’t notice them from our vantage point.

There have been some criticisms of the new Panther logo, but I think most of them miss the point that Pitt needed a new Panther logo. They couldn’t ride with the Dinocat anymore; the hard lines of that particular design don’t match up aesthetically or spiritually, if you will, with the script Pitt, so that old friend of more than 20 years had to go.

What Nike came up with is a nice nod to the Cathedral of Learning, and once it’s around for a few years and fans get used to seeing it, most will come to appreciate it.

The biggest complaints, however, have centered on the…well, the center of the uniforms.

The numbers.

The colors were easy to nail and the secondary Panther logo had to change out of necessity, and Nike had little trouble getting those right. But the numbers have drawn the most ire, and I can understand why.

Unlike the Panther logo, where the previous incarnation was clearly in need of a replacement, there was a well-liked iteration of the numbers already in place with the retro uniforms the football team wore for the last three years.

As one person - a few, actually - have put it: Pitt had a more or less perfect uniform, so why change it? Why not just go with what works? It wouldn’t have been a big surprise on a Sunday in April, but it would have worked just fine on Saturday’s in the fall.

To this, I don’t have much of a response. The block font in white with yellow trim on the home jerseys looked awful sharp, and while I was looking forward to seeing what Nike would come up with on the numbers overall, I’m not sure they really improved on that look with the Cathedral font and yellow numbers in white trim.

Still, Pitt fans got the colors they wanted with the script logo they wanted, so why find things to complain about?

Well, I’ll be the first to say that this fan base sometimes seems to seek out the negative and cynical in some sort of desire for self-loathing. But in this case, I think the problem is that for three years, they’ve seen a version of these uniforms that they like just fine - a version they wanted to see every weekend in the fall.

The new uniforms were inevitably going to be a comparison to those “retros,” and any significant changes - when most fans probably couldn’t pick one thing to change on the retros - were likely going to be met with skepticism and criticism.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Is winning the Coastal paying off?
It’s hard to deny that Pitt seems to have a little buzz right now on the recruiting trail.

I’m not just talking about the commitment of Sam Williams, the defensive end from Fort Lauderdale who made his verbal pledge last weekend. I’m talking about the entirety of spring. Almost every day and especially on the weekends, Pitt has been hosting some impressive prospects from up and down the coast.

Lots of offered targets in the 2020 and 2021 classes have been stopping by campus, watching practice, spending time with the coaches and generally seeing what Pitt’s about. And while I don’t have numbers from last spring, I am confident in saying there have been more top targets on campus this spring than in any recent year.

So what’s behind that? What’s made Pitt so interesting to recruits this spring? Is winning the Coastal Division paying dividends?

There’s certainly a trend in recruiting where, if you have a successful season (and we won’t go down the road of debating 2018 as “successful” or not), you get recruiting results in the next class. So when Pitt went 10-3 in 2009, the class they signed the following February (the class of 2010) was solid, but the real headway was made in the summer as the staff built the class of 2011.

That class would ultimately fall apart through multiple coaching changes, of course, but if you remember back to the summer of 2010, the recruiting hype was considerable. Pitt was beating legitimate competition for four-star recruits, and it seemed to be stemming from the success of the previous year.

Is that happening this year? Never mind the 7-7 record and three-game losing streak to end the season; Pitt’s got a division title and an appearance in the ACC Championship Game to recruit on, and the coaches seem to be doing just that. So is that what’s bringing all of these recruits to campus for unofficial visits?

Maybe. I do think that’s part of it. But I think there’s another element that is pretty important, too, and it’s even more recent than the Coastal championship.

Chris Beatty.

Pitt hired its new receivers coach in late January, grabbing him from Maryland as the Terrapins built a new coaching staff. He came with a reputation as good receivers coach but a great recruiter, someone with strong ties into Virginia, where Pitt has been trying to get established for a few years.

The efforts are paying off. While the staff has hosted recruits from a variety of areas this spring, Virginia has been particularly well-represented, with some top targets from the 2020 and 2021 classes stopping by the South Side and Heinz Field pretty consistently over the last few weeks.

The common theme among those prospects:

Beatty, and that’s a factor that can’t be ignored.

But still, I think the tangible success of winning the Coastal Division is generating a little momentum for Pitt. Like we’ve said for the last five months, while it was an unpleasant night in Charlotte, the fact that the Panthers made that trip sends a message about where things are going with the program.

They’ve been there once, the sales pitch goes, so they can get back.

Truth is, right now Pitt is the top team in the division. And until someone else wins the Coastal, that’s going to be the case. The Pitt coaches are definitely selling that angle, and while there hasn’t been a slew of commitments, something is creating enough interest among recruits to get them on campus.

What to expect from the tight ends?
We’ve definitely touched on this topic before, but I figured we would take a spring run at the discussion.

If there’s one single position that Pat Narduzzi’s coaching staff has, for whatever reason, really struggled with, it’s tight end. I can’t put my finger on why that is, but they just haven’t been able to recruit or develop the position.

That first part is probably pretty significant. In five recruiting classes, Narduzzi’s staff has signed four tight ends out of high school; three of them were in one class and one was in the most recent class, so he’s not even on campus yet.

Oh, and of that three-man tight end class in 2017, only one is still on the team. So this spring’s roster had exactly one scholarship tight end who was recruited as a tight end out of high school. Four years of recruiting classes make up this year’s roster, and the net result is one tight end.

That’s not very good.

That’s also why the coaches have added four tight ends via transfer (Chris Clark, Matt Flanagan, Will Gragg and Nakia Griffin-Stewart), moved one to the position from defensive end (Kaymar Mimes) and put one walk-on on scholarship (Jim Medure), although he’s part-fullback/part-tight end.

Given all the shortcomings in recruiting, it’s not a surprise that tight end production in the passing game was virtually nonexistent last season. Throw in inconsistent quarterback play and questionable play-calling, and you get a grand total of 10 catches for 69 yards from the tight ends.

For this year, Pitt has most of those players back plus Mimes and incoming freshman Jason Collier. I’m guessing that Mimes and Collier will still need some development until they’re ready to contribute, so what can Pitt expect from the primary group of Gragg, Medure, Griffin-Stewart and Grant Carrigan?

To hear just about everyone tell it, the balls have been flying around at practice this spring. The tight ends seem to be catching quite a few passes, and Gragg, in particular, appears to be having a good go of it. Tim Salem told us last week that Gragg only had one drop through the first 10 or 11 practices; that seems like a good stat. But Salem and Narduzzi both emphasized that Gragg has to be focused on getting better as a blocker.

‘Can’t block, can’t play’ seems to be the mantra, even if Gragg presents a real weapon who can get downfield in the passing game.

Griffin-Stewart seems to be an all-around tight end with experience playing in the Big Ten. But I don’t know what to expect from him in the passing game; he played in 25 games at Rutgers and caught 13 total passes, so like Flanagan before him, the jury is out on what this Rutgers grad transfer tight end can contribute.

Medure is an interesting option. He seems to be working at some version of the George Aston fullback position, which incorporates some elements of tight end. And last year he did have 29 yards on three receptions; sadly, those are strong numbers in the context of Pitt’s tight ends in 2018.

As for Carrigan, I can’t say my expectations are high for him as a pass-catcher. He might make a few grabs, but it seems like blocking is his forte.

So my guess is that Gragg will be the deciding factor in whether or not the tight ends contribute in the passing game this season. If he can block well enough to stay on the field - last year he played four snaps total in the final four games, including sitting out the Clemson game altogether - then he might be able to have a decent year as a receiving option.

Of course, a fair amount of that is going to come down to the play of Kenny Pickett and the direction of the offense under Mark Whipple, but that’s another story (and one we’ve discussed and will continue to discuss) altogether

JUST ONE MORE THING

More on the draft
A few other things that stood out to me in Pitt’s draft for the Blue-Gold Game:

- The Gold Team had the first pick in the draft, and while I was guessing we would see a quarterback or possibly a defensive end, maybe a receiver, they opted for safety. Damar Hamlin was off the board since he’ll be sitting out his final spring game at Pitt, so the Gold captains - Maurice Ffrench and Amir Watts - had their eye on another senior:

Jazzee Stocker

I thought that was a really interesting pick. Stocker has seen playing time over the past few years. Last season, he was mostly an extra safety in the third-down Delta package, but he’s vying for the starting boundary safety job next to Hamlin. There are a few options for that spot, but the fact that Ffrench - a first-team receiver - pushed for Stocker tells me that there’s some respect there and he may have the inside line on the starting spot.

- Of course, you can’t talk safeties without talking about Paris Ford, and the redshirt sophomore from Steel Valley was the next pick off the board. What’s interesting to me about Ford is that safeties coach Cory Sanders said that he is pretty much only playing boundary safety, whereas players like Stocker, Hamlin and Bricen Garner are capable of moving between the boundary and field spots. I think the goal is to really lock in Ford’s focus on one spot in the hopes of getting him ready to play and contribute.

- I thought the second round was just as interesting as the first. The way the draft works is, each round is a position; so by taking Stocker first, the Gold Team “opened” safeties in the first round, and that round ended when the safeties were all taken. The Blue Team had the first pick of the second round and they opted to go for running backs.

Their choice was sophomore V’Lique Carter, and I find that pick really interesting. Pat Narduzzi said he thought the Blue Team “saw two bigger backs and one electric back,” and that roster did add Todd Sibley to go with Carter. But the fact that Carter was the first back off the board - and the first pick at the second position to be drafted - tells me that his teammates, including Blue Team captain Saleem Brightwell, have been pretty impressed with him.

- I’m not going to go round-by-round, but the third round was interesting, too, as the Gold Team opened the offensive tackles and took redshirt sophomore Carter Warren. A potential candidate for the Ed Conway Award as most improved player of spring, He emerged as a guy getting talked about midway through camp and he finished as the apparent top left tackle.

That was based on what we saw during our limited media viewing window, but the fact that his teammates made him the first tackle taken - the first offensive lineman taken - seems to back up the notion that he had a good spring.

- Speaking of the Ed Conway Award, my guesses are Chase Brown for offense and Phil Campbell for defense.

- Speaking of Campbell, he was the first outside linebacker drafted on Thursday. Not bad for a guy who moved to linebacker this spring.

- Narduzzi thought it was interesting that the quarterbacks didn’t go until the sixth round, which seems to indicate that the two sets of captains saw safety, running back, offensive tackle, defensive end and outside linebacker as bigger priorities - or, as Narduzzi suggested, the captains saw those positions as having a greater fall-off through the depth than exists at quarterback.

Which is to say, maybe they don’t see a huge separation between Kenny Pickett and Nick Patti. That’s interesting, and we’ll see how they play on Saturday.