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In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we’re thinking about the loss to Miami, the problems in Pitt’s offense and a lot more.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

This was bound to happen
Eventually, Pitt was going to lose another game.

We all knew that, right? We knew that Pitt wasn’t going to win out and go 10-2, didn't we?

I kept saying that the target was eight wins on the season, that falling short of eight would be a disappointment and that, really, the aim should be on nine wins, which would have meant going 4-1 in the final five games.

I’ll probably keep saying that, although taking that loss in the first game of the final five means that Pitt has to win out for nine regular-season wins. It’s not impossible, but it’s probably unlikely.

So eight stays on the table.

Of course, the problem with Saturday’s game wasn’t just that Pitt lost; it was how they lost.

The game was in reach. The Panthers had a lead in the final minute of the game, and they put themselves in that position despite doing so many things that should have, and ultimately did, cost them the game. Turnovers, drops, an inability to run the ball and kill clock in a key situation - Pitt gave the game away six or seven times.

That’s probably what killed people the most: Pitt should have beat Miami. As the man says, deserve’s got nothing to do with it, though, and Pitt needed to earn the win. Which didn’t happen.

And that’s what made it an especially tough loss. It was a winnable game, and when you lose a winnable game, it’s a bad loss.

But there’s the rub: no matter what happened, any loss in the final five games was always going to be a bad loss. Miami, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Boston College - these are not good teams. They’re average, at best, and if Pitt believed itself to be above average, then it should beat each and every one of those teams.

Lose to any of those teams, and it’s a disappointing loss. A bad loss. I think I would call last Saturday’s loss to Miami a bad loss, just like I would call any other loss in the next four games a bad loss.

So it was a tricky situation for Pitt. The Panthers weren’t likely to win out, but there were just no palatable options for which team or teams would be the one or ones to beat Pitt. Any loss would be a bad loss, but a loss was probably inevitable.

I guess what I’m saying is, it was kind of an all-or-nothing situation. Either Pitt won out, which was unlikely, or they blew a game or two and we all called them out for a bad loss.

That’s what happened against Miami. Pitt had a bad loss. Let’s see if they can keep it to just one.

The forest and the trees
There’s this funny thing we do in sports commentary, be it from fans, media or whoever else might be offering an observation or analysis on a game:

We focus on some specific thing, usually something that happens at the end of a game, and put the full credit/blame for the win/loss on that factor while ignoring all of the things that happened earlier in the game to lead up to it.

A basketball team misses free throws late in a game and loses? The storyline is inevitably about the missed free throws - not the circumstances that led to such a close score at that point in the game. A baseball manager makes certain decisions on his relievers in the final two innings and his team loses? We talk about those decisions more than whatever happened in the second inning or the sixth.

This isn’t to say that those moments, those decisions aren’t important; they obviously are and they’re part of the game - just like everything that came before them.

So while we’ve all spent a lot of time talking about fouth-and-goal-from-the-1 decisions this season, we can’t ignore that which came first. Should Pat Narduzzi have tried for the touchdown on fourth-and-goal-from-the-1 against Miami? I say no; I think he made the right call by kicking the field goal, but I also realize that we’re all pretty dug in on that topic. It’s highly unlikely that anyone’s opinion on that decision is going to change.

Ultimately, though, I put that decision well behind several other matters when it comes to discussing the game. How about Kenny Pickett’s two interceptions? How about all of those dropped passes? How about Pitt getting the ball in great field position after a turnover and only scoring three points out of it?

Those things had much, much more to do with the outcome of the game than that fourth-and-goal play.

I know people aren’t ignoring those plays. And I know that there is always going to be more focus on what happens late in a game because time is ticking down and every decision you make in those situations is critical.

My point is this:

If Pitt doesn’t make the myriad of mistakes it made earlier in the game - seriously, it might be double digits between the drops and turnovers alone, and that doesn't even get into see-it-on-film execution issues - then it doesn’t matter what happens on fourth-and-goal. The same goes for the Penn State game: make a tackle on third-and-9 from the Penn State 3 in the first quarter, and chances are, that fourth-and-goal decision in the fourth quarter isn’t relevant.

Now, I’m not totally dismissing those late-game decisions and plays; that’s when you can put a game away or steal one by making the right call. But I would put a whole lot more emphasis on not screwing up so mightily in the first 53 minutes of the game.

The best way to avoid making the wrong call in late-game situations is to take away the gravity of those situations.

(P.S. - Narduzzi was still right to kick the field goal.)

Getting better
It’s hard not to have negativity after a loss. It’s natural, and when you lose a close game that you should win, the bulk of the focus is going to be on all the mistakes and miscues that led to the defeat.

But Saturday’s 16-12 loss to Miami wasn’t without its bright spots, and I think that the running game was one of them. Pitt rushed for 176 yards against the Hurricanes; that’s not a season high, but for a team that has had three games with less than 100 rushing yards, it’s a pretty solid total.

Now, of course there is context to the numbers. 54 of the 176 yards came on four carries from Todd Sibley, who looked as good as he ever has while running out of the Wildcat formation. Take away those four plays, and Pitt’s running backs - A.J. Davis and V’Lique Carter - finished with 92 yards on 26 attempts; that’s not a good stat line.

But we can’t entirely ignore Sibley’s plays. After producing little through the first seven games, the Wildcat hit multiple times on Saturday, and while Sibley is going to be out for some time due to the injury he suffered in the Miami game, I’m sure Davis and Carter can take direct snaps and pick up where he left off.

Plus, the 176-yard effort against Miami followed another strong game on the ground the previous week at Syracuse, when Davis put up the first 100-yard performance of the season and Pitt rushed for 145 yards.

Do these numbers look like Pitt's ground game last season? No, they pale in comparison. But they are signs of an improving rushing attack, which could be important for this offense.

A big part of the seeming improvement has been on the individual level. In the win at Syracuse, Davis ran as hard as he has in his Pitt career; he had some burst and was really running with a purpose. On Saturday against Miami he was a little more contained, but Carter and Sibley both turned it up a notch.

Carter is the interesting one to me. I’ve felt for the last few weeks that running him between the tackles just wasn’t working. Pitt needs to get the ball to him; I won’t argue that point. But my contention has been that the coaches need to find different ways of doing that, rather than handing it off for him to follow a pulling guard or something like that.

But Pat Narduzzi made an interesting point on Thursday:

“I like what he does in there because, let me tell you, he can run on the outside and go, but if he hits a hole inside, it’s just a matter of time before he hits one and it’s gone, because if he hits one and there’s some holes that look like Qadree Ollison had last year and Darrin Hall had, he’s going to be gone.”

So maybe it’s worth continuing to try. I would still focus on plays that have him running outside the tackles - sweeps, tosses, etc. - but you can’t do the same thing with one guy every time he’s on the field; there has to be a threat of Carter running up the middle. I would keep trying to build that part of his game because he is one of the players on this offense who can make game-changing plays.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Is the offense actually worse?
I’m hardly the first to raise this possibility, but consider me formally onboard with those who say that, yes, Pitt’s offense might actually be worse in 2019 than it was in 2018.

At least, by the numbers, the Panthers are worse on a number of levels. They clearly have a lesser rushing attack; you know that without the numbers, but in case you were uncertain, Pitt ranked No. 18 nationally last season averaging 227.9 rushing yards per game. This season, the team is No. 109 with 127.5 rushing yards per game.

That was an easy call, and quite frankly, one that we probably would have expected. The change from Shawn Watson to Mark Whipple, and more importantly the loss of two senior running backs and some pretty stout run-blockers on the offensive line, was bound to lead to reduced effectiveness in Pitt’s running game.

But that was okay, we all believed, because Whipple would improve the passing game, and those improvements would offset the fall of the rushing attack.

That was the plan.

And the plan hasn’t worked.

Sure, Pitt is averaging 254.8 passing yards per game, but so much of that - all of it, really - is due to volume. Kenny Pickett is throwing the ball 41 times per game; last year, he averaged 22.6 attempts per game. He’s not really throwing the ball any better; he averages 6.04 yards per attempt, which is lower than last year’s average of 6.35. And the increase in volume hasn’t done much for his touchdowns: he’s got eight in seven games, averaging one touchdown every 36.1 attempts. Last season, he threw 12 touchdowns in 14 games and averaged one scoring pass every 26.3 attempts.

So the passing game is putting up more yardage, but only because Whipple is calling nearly twice as many passes as Watson did last year. And it’s not translating to scoring; Pitt is averaging 21 points per game in 2019 - 4.6 points per game less than the Panthers averaged last season.

Of course, we’re comparing midseason numbers to full-season numbers. Pitt’s scoring averages in 2018 got a boost late in the season when the Panthers hung 52 on Virginia Tech and 33 on Wake Forest. Maybe this year’s team is on its way to similar upticks; maybe there are a few outbursts coming. But if they’re going to make that kind of jump, they’re going to have to get a whole lot more efficient. The Panthers are currently No. 8 in the nation in plays per game, but they are No. 107 in yards per play.

They run a lot of plays; they just don’t get much out of them.

Of course, there is a myriad of problems and reasons why the offense is worse; we’ll get to that in a minute. But I have a hard time not drawing the conclusion that the offense is worse than it was a year ago, and I’m surprised by that.

Why is it worse?
So this is the next question, right? Why has Pitt’s offense seemingly regressed, or at least not improved in the way many expected?

One problem is that last year’s offense did one thing great; this year’s offense hasn’t found its place in doing anything great. Pitt’s offense in 2018 was certainly unbalanced, and that needed to change with improvement to the passing game, but it’s better to at least have one thing you can hang your hat on than to be just okay - and probably worse - at running and passing.

Why hasn’t the passing game, in particular, seen an improvement beyond the increase in volume? There are probably a few reasons.

There’s the offensive line. That group is, we’re told, better at pass-blocking than run-blocking; I don’t entirely doubt that since they’ve shown to not be very good at run-blocking, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good at pass-blocking. Combine the ineffectiveness up front with Kenny Pickett’s continued development and far-from-finished status as a quarterback, and you end up with a number of plays that don’t produce much of anything (remember the refrain from before: they run a lot of plays but they don’t get much out of them).

So why is the offensive line in its current state? As always, it comes back to recruiting. I know you’ve heard this before, but it’s true: if you want to understand a team and its roster, you have to look at the recruiting. And the biggest culprits when it comes to the 2019 Pitt offensive line are the classes of 2015 and 2016; those should be the seniors, redshirt seniors and redshirt juniors on this roster - in other words, they should be the veteran leaders of the team. That’s especially true of the offensive line, where every coach’s dream is to have a bunch of fourth and fifth-year players.

In those two classes, - 2015 and 2016 - Pitt signed six offensive linemen. Four of those six aren’t even on the team anymore, and of the two who have made it this far, only one is starting or even seeing the field (Bryce Hargrove).

You want a quick and easy answer to some of Pitt’s problems on offense? There’s a good place to start. That’s why Pitt has had to try to fill out its offensive lines with graduate transfers over the last couple years. Sometimes, that works (like last year with Stefano Millin); sometimes, it doesn’t (like Brandon Hodges two years ago or, to a certain extent, Nolan Ulizio this year).

The upside is this: younger linemen like Carter Warren and Gabe Houy and Jake Kradel are getting a lot of experience. Those guys are going to be that much better next season, and the staff shouldn’t need to find another grad transfer when they’ve got six returning players with a decent amount of experience (Warren, Houy, Kradel, Hargrove, center Jimmy Morrissey and Carson Van Lynn, who has mostly played as an extra blocker at tight end but has also gotten some snaps on the line).

There are other issues in the offense this season, too. Dropped passes are a big one; you know that already. Pro Football Focus says Pitt’s pass-catchers have dropped 26 catchable balls this season. I haven’t tracked that as closely as they have, so I’m assuming their numbers are right. I know it seems like there have been more than 26 drops, but that’s more than three per game, which is a huge number to have in every game, so I guess it’s correct.

And then there’s Pickett’s play. Pitt’s junior quarterback has had his moments, but not as many as he needs to have in an offense that is relying on him to carry the load. Whipple wants to throw the ball 40 times per game, it seems; well, if that’s the case, then the quarterback needs to do better than 60% completion or else you're wasting a lot of plays. Maybe there’s a case to be made that volume can offset efficiency, but I think we’d all agree that a closer balance between those two elements would be ideal.

So what happens going forward? My guess is that we’ll see more of the same: a ton of plays and a low yards-per-play average. The good thing is that Miami was the toughest defense Pitt will face in the second half of the season, so the Panthers should have a chance for more success in these final four games.

ONE PREDICTION

Well, my prediction of four players getting 75 all-purpose yards against Miami didn’t exactly come to fruition. V’Lique Carter was actually the only Pitt player to top that number; he had 93 yards on a near-even split between rushing (47 yards) and receiving (46). But that was it. So mark that one as an L.

For this week’s prediction, I’m turning back to the old reliable,:Pitt’s defense. And the most reliable element of the Panthers’ most reliable unit this season has been the pass rush. Pitt was kind of quiet in that regard on Saturday; the Panthers only got two sacks against Miami thanks to a quick-throw passing attack that didn’t give the pass-rushers a lot of time to get home.

Two sacks is an okay total, but even though PFF credited the Panthers' defense with 20 pressures, it still seems like a disappointing day when a two-sack game comes a week after you had a nine-sack game. I’m guessing Pitt’s group of QBK’s - they call themselves that; it stands for quarterback killers - is feeling like it has something to prove after that performance, and I’m thinking they prove it this Saturday.

Georgia Tech is currently tied for No. 113 in the nation in sacks allowed per game, giving up an average of three sacks each time out. Surprisingly, that’s actually not the worst average in the ACC; Virginia, Florida State, North Carolina, Miami and Syracuse are all worse, with the Orange being dead last in the nation.

But we’re here to talk about the Yellow Jackets, and for this week’s prediction, I’m going with the defense and the pass rush. I think they’ll get to Georgia Tech’s quarterback - James Graham seems to be the signal-caller head coach Geoff Collins has settled on - and I think they’ll get to him multiple times.

Calling for multiple sacks isn’t much for a bold prediction, so I’ll set a number:

6.

I think Pitt gets 6+ sacks this week. The Panthers have hit that number in four of their eight games this season, and I think they get it again at Georgia Tech. Patrick Jones has been playing at a really high level, and I don’t think anyone would be surprised if one of Pitt’s other three top defensive ends - Deslin Alexandre, Habakkuk Baldonado or John Morgan - had a two-sack game. Jaylen Twyman is always a threat to get into the backfield; so is Kylan Johnson. And with the pressure packages Randy Bates dials up, you never know when a cornerback or a safety could get a free rush at the quarterback.

I think six (or more) is in reach, so that’s my prediction: Pitt gets a half-dozen sacks against Georgia Tech.