The 3-2-1: Momentum, recruiting, hoops & more in the off week

It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for the Panther-Lair.com 3-2-1 Column, where we look at three things we know, two questions we have and one prediction.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

Three challenges await
Where has the season gone? Playing nine games in nine consecutive weeks might not have been ideal for health and rest and recovery - although Pat Narduzzi said Wednesday that he likes having the off week late in the season - but it sure made the first ¾ of the season seem to fly by.

It seems like just yesterday we were sitting on traffic on I-99 heading northbound to State College. But here we are, looking at Pitt with a 4-5 overall record, a 2-3 mark in the ACC and three games left on the schedule.

And those three games are really, really interesting, because they each present a different kind of challenge.

Let’s start with next Thursday. Pitt will host North Carolina, a 1-8 team that hasn’t won an ACC game as it struggles even more with offseason personnel losses than Pitt has. That’s a game Pitt should win - recent history against UNC not withstanding - but “should win” and “will win” are two different things, and that game will provide an interesting test for a relatively young Pitt team.

Specifically, how do they react to having momentum, which they haven’t had all season? (We’ll look at that question more later in the column.)

So that’s the first test: beat a team you should beat and keep the momentum going.

Then comes Virginia Tech. Or, rather, then Pitt goes to Virginia Tech. Under Justin Fuente, the Hokies are 10-2 at Lane Stadium (Georgia Tech beat them last year, Clemson did it this year), and they look like one of the top four three teams in the ACC this season. Redshirt freshman quarterback Josh Jackson has been sensational this season, throwing 17 touchdowns against just four interceptions to rank second in the conference in pass efficiency; nobody in the ACC has thrown more touchdowns and fewer picks.

The Hokies will be a huge test for Pitt, and that challenge No. 2: assuming a win over UNC, can the Panthers go into Blacksburg with a three-game winning streak and take down a seemingly superior opponent on the road?

And finally, there’s Miami. The Hurricanes will come to Heinz Field on Black Friday in a game that could mean one of two things for Pitt. Again, assuming a win over North Carolina - and I realize that’s not a safe assumption on a lot of levels, but if they lose that game, then none of this really matters - the Virginia Tech will decide what the Miami game means.

If Pitt beats Virginia Tech, then the Panthers have a chance to really finish on a high note, turning a 2-5 record into 7-5 with a five-game winning streak and a spot in the postseason. And if they lose to Virginia Tech, then the Miami game will have bowl eligibility on the line.

In both scenarios, Miami is a tough out. The Hurricanes are every bit as good as Virginia Tech and probably better (making this weekend’s game between the Canes and Hokies really interesting). That means that whatever Pitt is playing for in the regular-season finale, the Panthers will have to earn it. Either way, they should be motivated, whether it’s motivation to finish with an impressive five-game winning streak or to simply finish as a bowl-eligible team that won four of its final five games.

(Incidentally, the last time Pitt played the regular-season finale with bowl eligibility on the line was 2014, when the Panthers won at Miami; of course, both teams in that game are quite different from the teams that will meet the day after Thanksgiving.)

Three games and three (or four) unique challenges. How Pitt responds to each challenge will say a lot about Pat Narduzzi, his coaching staff and these players.

Growing confidence
One thing that seems to be emerging in the two-game winning streak is confidence.

Whether it’s on defense or in the run game, this team seems to be building considerable faith in its ability to accomplish the tasks at hand. That’s not to say that earlier this season or last year they didn’t believe they could get it done, but there’s a noticeable difference between having to keep say “We’re close to making plays” and actually making plays.

Last year, Pitt didn’t make plays on defense. We kept hearing how close the secondary was, how the corners were in position to make plays but just didn’t finish, for whatever reason. This season, they’ve been finishing, and it’s to the point where - at least for me and probably for you and maybe even for the Pitt coaches and players - when a pass is in the air, there’s a fair amount of confidence that it won’t be caught.

Last year, that wasn’t the case, right? By the midpoint of last year, when a quarterback dropped back to pass, didn’t you assume a completion? Now when the ball is in the air, I’m thinking there’s a better-than-even chance that a Pitt defender will break it up, either by getting a hand on the ball or hitting the receiver hard enough to jar it loose.

And if I’m sensing that confidence in the press box and you’re sensing it in the stands, then you better believe they’re sensing it on the sidelines and on the field. I have to also imagine that opponents are sensing it, too, and that’s got to be affecting the approach they’re taking.

Now, we’ll see in two weeks if Virginia Tech attempts to repeat its success from 2016 with another fade-fest, and if that’s the approach Justin Fuente takes, we’ll see how far Pitt’s pass defense has come. But this is a defense that’s coming into its own, growing and evolving over the course of nine games into a rather formidable unit. The missing piece of the puzzle has been the defensive line, but that group is coming off its most productive game to date, so maybe even that’s coming together.

As I look at storylines from the first nine games, that stands out as much as anything: this defense is becoming a confident group that believes in itself.

Losing a local one
Since it’s the off week, we’ll dedicate some space here to recruiting. Obviously the big news this week was that four-star Aliquippa safety Kwantel Raines committed to West Virginia Monday night.

That’s a blow for Pitt; no question about it. If nothing else, it looks bad. Raines is a top-ranked local recruit at a school that has sent a lot of players to Pitt. No matter what you think of him as a recruit or what he could bring to the team, it looks bad.

So much in recruiting is perception and how things look (I think the en vogue term is “optics”). When a player like Raines commits to West Virginia, following the commitment of East Allegheny four-star TJ Banks to WVU and adding to four-star Pine-Richland quarterback Phil Jurkovec committing to Notre Dame, it starts to look like a trend. Those three are currently the highest-rated recruits in the WPIAL class of 2018, according to Rivals.com, and they’re all going somewhere other than the hometown school.

Of course, Pitt does have commitments from Jake Kradel, Blake Zubovic and Devin Danielson locally, who are probably underrated as the Nos. 4, 5 and 8 recruits, respectively, in the WPIAL. Plus Noah Palmer and David Green, who are rated lower but both have the potential to be contributors.

Danielson, in particular, might be the best player in the WPIAL after Jurkovec, and he should see a rankings bump in the next update.

So the trend might not be as much a trend as it is perception, but Raines is a good player, and it’s never good to lose talent when it’s in your backyard. As it relates to on-field impact, though, safety - where Raines was recruited - is a spot where Pitt is pretty strong.

Consider this: there’s a better-than-even chance that Jordan Whitehead leaves for the NFL after this season, and the Panthers can probably absorb that blow. Damar Hamlin has been getting a ton of work this season and is steadily improving, Bricen Garner started games before Hamlin started emerging and Dennis Briggs started three games while Whitehead was suspended. Plus there’s Paris Ford, a star freshman apparently lighting things up on the scout team this season; he’s going to be tough to keep off the field in 2018 - possibly in a starting role. And Therran Coleman could find a home at safety if that’s a better chance for him to play; he’s got the size to pull off that move. Phil Campbell is also still at safety, and 2018 cornerback commit Judson Tallandier has the size to play there, too.

Raines is a loss, but Pitt has some pretty impressive talent and depth at safety. Now, if he ends up at linebacker, then that will sting a little more; the Panthers have numbers at that spot but not much in the way of on-field exposure, so those players are still proving themselves.

So it stings to lose Raines because he’s a top local target. It’s not a good thing, to be sure. But it’s not quite as bad as it has been made out to be.

TWO QUESTIONS

How much can DiNucci improve?
There’s no question about it: Pitt has gotten better as this season has gone on.

Granted, Duke and Virginia are a far cry from Penn State and Oklahoma State, but I think just about anyone would agree that Pitt has shown considerable improvement over the course of the season, particularly in the run game and the pass defense.

But with discernable improvement in multiple areas, there’s one big question mark, one big area that has to get better if the current two-game winning streak is going to extend into the final two games of the season.

You know what I’m talking about. Pitt has to get better at quarterback.

Really, that’s the one weak spot in the last two games. Ben DiNucci has done a good-enough job - Pitt won both games, after all - but it was barely enough. DiNucci completed 18-of-36 passes the last two weeks, throwing for 283 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He was also sacked four times, and on two of those, he simply ran out of bounds behind the sticks.

DiNucci has to get better; there’s no question about it. 50% completion and a 1:1 touchdown:interception ratio simply won’t cut it. With the run game rolling like it has been the last two weeks, Pitt’s passing game doesn’t need to carry the offense. But it has to contribute more than it has. A better passing game puts Duke out of reach by halftime and puts Pitt ahead by more than three touchdowns against Virginia.

North Carolina might not force Pitt to make plays through the air, but Virginia Tech and Miami will. Virginia Tech has a dominant rush defense and Miami can score a lot; those two factors are going to put the game on DiNucci’s shoulders, and so far, he hasn’t shown that he can carry the load.

Now, a lot can happen between now and the Nov. 18 trip to Blacksburg. DiNucci has a week off to study more, learn more and get more comfortable. Plus, offensive coordinator Shawn Watson has some extra time to break down film of DiNucci and hone in on the things he does well. Against Virginia, for instance, Watson used more roll-outs and bootlegs to get DiNucci moving away from the pass rush, and that seemed to work well.

Fine-tuning the things that work for DiNucci can help in all regards and will be key in this three-game stretch. If DiNucci can improve, then all three games can be winnable and a 7-5 record could be in reach. If he doesn’t improve enough, then 5-7 will be a tough record to achieve.

It’s not hyperbole to say that the final record depends on DiNucci as much as any player; that kind of responsibility comes with being the quarterback. And the answer to this question is going to be the answer to the question of whether 2017 will end with bowl eligibility for Pitt.

How long will curiosity carry the interest in the Pitt hoops team?
The conversation regarding Pitt basketball has been very interesting this offseason. As summer turned to fall, the general tone of the fan base shifted from overall distaste for Kevin Stallings, the process by which he was hired and the way he managed a team with two of the better pure talents to play for Pitt in recent memory to something more resembling outright curiosity.

Just who, many pondered, are these Panthers?

I can imagine many Pitt fans sitting down with a lineup card at Saturday’s exhibition game and reenacting the early scene in Major League where Indians fans in a diner are reading the lineup in the paper:

“Khameron Davis, Monty Boykins, Kene Chukwuka…I never heard of most of ‘em. Samson George?”

But if familiarity breeds contempt, the lack of familiarity seems to have gone the other way, at least in the preseason. Fans seem to be curious - maybe morbidly so - about who this team is, who these players are and what they might be capable of. The curiosity almost seems to have overcome the fan base’s feelings for Stallings.

“Let’s give him a chance and see what he can do with a brand new roster.”

So at least in the early part of the season, curiosity has spiked the interest of the Pitt basketball fans. They want to see these players in action, see who stands out, who can shoot, who can dunk, who can rebound, who can defend. Pitt fans are in a unique position, a place they’ve never been before: the vast majority of the fan base has never seen the vast majority of the roster play basketball.

You can’t say that about too many recent seasons in this program’s history. There was always a core, always linkage from roster to roster carrying over “the way we do things” and making sure that the next group coming up knew the standards that had been set. And most relevantly to what we’re discussing, there were always players that the fans knew. There was always Julius or Chevy or Levon or Levance or Aaron or Sam or Brad or Gil or Tray or James or Lamar.

In the latter years of the Jamie Dixon era, those players weren’t always synonymous with success, but they were known commodities. Fans knew the players and their names and their numbers. Now, fans might miss half of Saturday’s exhibition against Slippery Rock because they’ll be looking down at the roster card to see who just hit that shot or grabbed that rebound.

I don’t know what attendance will be on Saturday - or for the rest of the season - but it’s likely that everyone there will be quite curious to see who is wearing a Pitt uniform this season. My question is, how long will that last?

Expectations are very low for this Pitt team and its record is not likely to be one that gets referenced fondly. So if the first month of games shows these Panthers to be not quite ready for prime time, will the fan interest wane? Or is there a finite supply of that curiosity that runs out once people feel like they have seen enough?

ONE PREDICTION

Playing with momentum
Switching back to football…

Right now, during this off week, Pitt has something it hasn’t had all season:

Momentum.

Winners of two straight with impressive success on defense and in the running game, the Panthers look a lot different now than they did at the beginning of the fall, and the developments have been largely positive.

So we’re wondering…how is this going to go? Pitt has played with quite a bit of adversity this season, and given that the Panthers’ two wins in the first seven games were separated by three losses, they haven’t actually strung any success together in 2017. In fact, this team has struggled to gain momentum within in a game, let alone the season, so sitting on a two-game winning streak is a different look for these Panthers.

So what do they do? How do they handle it? Because right now, Pitt is relaxing at home, getting healthy and fine-tuning for the final three games, a quarter of the season that will determine if the Panthers have their first regular-season losing record since 2007 - not coincidentally, that was also the last time Pitt stayed home in bowl season. The Panthers have a chance to finish the season winning anywhere from two to five of the final five; if they end up on the high end of that number, it will look like a pretty good finish after starting 1-3 and 2-5.

For starters, it looks like Pitt’s next game should build the momentum. North Carolina - which visits Heinz Field next Thursday - is the bottom of the ACC, a one-win team that is on a five-game losing streak due to offseason personnel losses that have caused even more damage that the ones Pitt suffered.

It looks like a win for Pitt. It should be a win for Pitt. But we’re also talking about North Carolina here, and need I remind anyone of what’s happened in the four games the Panthers and Tar Heels have faced each other as ACC foes? It’s been something different every time, but every time, it’s been something. UNC just has Pitt’s number, or at least it has for four years running.

Still, if ever there was a year when things should go the Panthers’ way, 2017 would seem to be it. So we come back to the question: How does Pitt play with momentum? Because to me, that’s the big question - maybe even bigger than the question of whether Pitt can get past its cursed existence in games against UNC.

You know as well as I do that Pitt hasn’t always dealt well with momentum. In 2014, Paul Chryst’s Panthers opened the season 3-0, including a pair of wins at Boston College and FIU - only to lose to Iowa, Akron and Virginia in the next three weeks. That team rebounded with something of a reinvigorating Thursday night win over Virginia Tech, only to fumble on its first five drives the next week against Georgia Tech and miss a late field goal to lose in overtime against Duke the game after that (and lose at North Carolina the following week).

2013 saw Pitt rattle off three wins in a row after a welcome-to-the-ACC loss in the opener against Florida State. But the 3-1 record quickly turned to 4-4 when Pitt’s only win over the next four games was against Old Dominion (Pitt even lost at Navy in that stretch). The Panthers came out of the 4-4 funk with the best win of the Chryst era, mounting a fourth-quarter comeback to beat Notre Dame - and then gave up two punt return touchdowns to Ryan Switzer and the aforementioned Tar Heels.

And not to pick on Paul Chryst, but his first team should have built some momentum from a near-miss at Notre Dame in 2012 that followed a two-game winning streak; instead, it came out and fell behind Connecticut 24-0 in the first half the next week.

Todd Graham’s team never won back-to-back games after opening the season with Buffalo and Maine, so there was no momentum to speak of there. But the 2010 team rebounded from its tough 2-3 start to beat Syracuse, Rutgers and Louisville, only to drop a win-the-Big-East game at Connecticut.

2008 might have been the classic example of momentum-killing. Pitt entered that season high from the 13-9 game that ended 2007 and promptly lost to Bowling Green at home in the opener. That one stung, but Pitt bounced back and won five games in a row, including a road upset of a top-ten USF team. Proud of its 5-1 record, Pitt came home to host Rutgers - and made Mike Teel look like Dan Marino.

Can the 2017 team handle momentum better than those teams did? Maybe part of it is on coaching. Pat Narduzzi’s team hasn’t had any momentum to handle this season, but there were instances in each of the last two years that we can look at. The 2015 team had a pretty impressive 6-1 start before dropping a tough one to North Carolina on a Thursday night at home and then getting beat pretty badly by Notre Dame the following week. Still, that UNC loss doesn’t seem quite as bad as Akron in 2014, Navy in 2013, the UConn game in 2012, the UConn game in 2010 or the Bowling Green and Rutgers games in 2008.

Last year, Pitt had all the momentum in the world after the Penn State game, but Oklahoma State started the routine of exposing the Panthers’ pass defense, as did Virginia Tech in a loss that killed a three-game winning streak. And the loss to Northwestern did end another three-game winning streak, but there might be a difference between ending a winning streak - all winning streaks end - and suffering the kind of loss that kills momentum.

Plus, to Pitt’s credit, it did follow the Clemson win with a pair of wins in games that the Panthers should have won.

So maybe Narduzzi’s teams haven’t snapped momentum in quite the same fashion as their predecessors. The last two Pitt teams have seen winning streaks end, but it doesn’t seem the same. Next Thursday night will put that to the test.

I almost forgot that this is supposed to be a prediction. So here’s the prediction: Pitt will keep the momentum and beat UNC. The Tar Heels just aren’t good this season, and two of their eight losses have come to the two teams Pitt has beaten in the ACC (Duke and Virginia). UNC’s offense is a far cry from what it has been in the past, whether it’s rushing or passing, and we’ve seen in recent weeks that Pitt has been able to play pretty well against bad offenses. And as an added bonus, North Carolina - unlike Duke or Virginia - has a pretty bad defense, ranking outside the top 100 nationally in total defense, rushing defense and, most importantly, scoring defense.

The Tar Heels don’t run the ball very well, they turn it over and they are downright awful on third down. Pitt isn’t great, but Pitt is good enough to beat UNC, so for the third week in a row, I’m predicting a Pitt win.