Thursday notes: Two-punter race, LT battle, the adjustable wrench and more
Pitt’s punters kicked 54 punts in 2022, and Sam Vander Haar and Cam Guess accounted for most of those.
42 punts, in fact, came from Vander Haar and Guess, but through nine practices this spring, those two have done very little punting.
“We’ve got two good punters,” special teams coordinator Andre Powell said Thursday afternoon, and he wasn’t referring to Vander Haar and Guess.
He was referring to redshirt sophomore Caleb Junko and junior Jeff Yurk,.
Does that mean that Junk and Yurk have separated themselves from the group?“That’s correct,” Powell said. “That’s correct.”
Junko was Pitt’s third punter last year. He punted 12 times with an average of 48.7 yards per punt, four punts inside the 20, three punts of 50-plus yards and two touchbacks - one of which was an NCAA bowl game-record 85-yard punt in the Sun Bowl.
He worked behind Vander Haar and Guess but saw all 12 of his punts come in the second half of the season.
Yurk transferred to Pitt this offseason from Elon, where he averaged 41 yards per punt on 104 punts, putting 34 inside the 20 and forcing 27 fair catches.
“He’s a strong leg guy,” Powell said of Yurk. “He’s got a strong leg. He’s got to work on hang time. I mean, he kicks the ball too far with not the appropriate hang time.
“Junko kicked a 70-yard punt on the turf Tuesday. A 70-yard punt. He punted the ball - we snapped the ball on the minus-43; he kicked it out of the end zone. So he’s obviously got a strong leg, but if you kick one 73 yards in a game, he’s probably going to have to make a tackle. So we don’t want it to go quite that far.”
Aiming for a thousand x2
When Jared Wayne finished his senior season with 1,063 yards, it was just the 11th time in school history that a Pitt receiver has recorded 1,000 receiving yards in a single season.
Now the Panthers don’t want to just match that milestone; they want to double it.
That’s the challenge second-year receivers coach Tiquan Underwood has issued to his players.
“He has the standard real high,” redshirt sophomore Myles Alston said Thursday. “The goal is to get multiple 1,000-yard receivers. Last year, we had one. Now we’re trying to get two and then we’re going to work on three, so we’re just going to keep raising the standard.”
Alston, a redshirt sophomore from Virginia is still looking for his first career catch, but he has had a strong spring camp so far and thinks he can have an impact on achieving that goal.
“You’re going to see everything,” Alston said. “I want to be the most versatile player in the country. I want to be able to win the deep ball, all the short routes, five-and-under, all of those things, catch-and-run ability, everything. I want to be the most polished guy I can possibly be.”
Battle at left tackle
One competition that has developed this spring is at left tackle. Redshirt junior Branson Taylor returns after starting four games at that spot last season - including the Sun Bowl and wins over Virginia Tech and Virginia - and he’s facing stiff competition from redshirt freshman Ryan Baer, the highest-rated offensive line prospect to sign with Pitt since Pat Narduzzi became head coach in 2015.
Baer is pushing Taylor for the job, but he said that the competition between the two is healthy and friendly.
“Me and B work every day together,” Baer said of Taylor. “If it’s in the film, even in the locker room, just looking at little stuff. We came out here, we worked every day during winter conditioning, just me and him. He’s been my mentor since the old guys left, so he’s been helping me out a bunch.”
Baer added that the entire offensive line room is tight, even after losing four seniors from the group this offseason.
“The O-line is really close. When I first got here, I lived with Ryan Jacoby, so I got really close with him. And then Branson, he was the dude that took me around and he’s an Ohio guy, too. Me and him have gotten really close. And Blake (Zubovic) and Matt (Goncalves) - we hang out on the weekends. We play video games together. We’re all really close. I could name all of them.”
The adjustable wrench
Andre Powell doesn’t mince words when it comes to redshirt senior running back Daniel Carter.
“What’s the value of a guy that can do anything?” Powell asked rhetorically Thursday. “I don’t know if you can put a price tag on it. It’s unbelievable.”
Carter has only carried the ball 38 times in 38 games over the course of the last four seasons, gaining 137 yards and scoring four touchdowns in addition to one receiving touchdown on six career receptions. But Powell sees the fullback/tailback from Florida as capable of helping the offense in a lot of ways.
“Daniel is like an adjustable wrench. He can do anything in the backfield and some things on the line that the tight ends do. He’s the smartest guy in the room, so like yesterday, I did an experiment. I asked (freshman) TJ (Harvison) - I drew up a front and I said, ‘Come up and draw where everybody’s going on power.’ He wasn’t even close. I said, ‘Daniel, come up’ and Daniel coached the play like a coach. He talked about the deuce block going to the backside, he talked about the gap, he talked about the guard pulling inside leverage, the fullback, where he’s supposed to be. I told TJ, three years ago, he couldn’t do that.
“Daniel may be one of the smartest guys I’ve been around. He can do a lot of things. Special teams, offense, just so glad we’ve got him.”
Competition in the secondary
Pitt has two open starting jobs at safety, and while junior P.J. O’Brien entered spring camp with an inside track on the field safety position, redshirt sophomore Stephon Hall is keeping the pressure on him.
At a rangy 6’1” 190, Hall has the right physical attributes for the field safety spot, and he thinks he is a natural fit there.
“My length, my aggression,” he said when asked why the field safety position is a good one for him. “I play fast, so I think that will be a great opportunity to really make plays out there at that field position.”
The field safety position carries a fair amount of responsibility, too, as the defense’s literal last line of defense. That means the player in that spot has to be on-point with the defensive scheme, and Hall said that’s coming together for him.
“I mean, of course, I’m still a young guy right now, but the mental part’s going to come, especially with reps, and I feel as though I’m smart enough to really know the defense over time. By the end of this spring or by fall, I’ll definitely be able to master the defense."