Pitt is still trying to find its primary running back for the 2020 season and Vincent Davis is making a strong case to be the guy this year. He has now been Pitt’s leading rusher in three straight games dating back to last season. Davis also has has the most career touchdowns among the running backs with seven.

Davis rushed for 47 yards and two touchdowns last week, and his play caught the eye of Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi the most of the five running backs that saw the field in Pitt’s 55-0 win over Austin Peay.

“You got to make people miss,” Narduzzi said. “That was one thing I saw Vince do, which we saw him do it last year. He's a good back.”

Davis believes he has grown as a player from his freshman season to this year. He credits that to having a better understanding of the offense from second-year offensive coordinator Mark Whipple. The sophomore running back gained that knowledge in the offseason by learning the offense virtually. He believes the growth is true of all the other returning backs as well.

“It was the same guys, it’s just we weren’t mature enough,” Davis said of the running game struggles from last season. “Now this year I feel like we’re very mature. We understand more and understand what we have to do and understand the others around us and that’s the difference I think in us.”

Powell agreed with Davis’ assessment about the newfound knowledge in the running back room.

“Well Vince was a good player as a freshman,” the Pitt running backs coach said. "He got hurt and it set him back, but the biggest difference between Vince and all of the guys is how much knowledge they’ve acquired.”

The college football offseason was unique to say the least. Pitt used that time to focus on understanding the game over Zoom meetings, not just memorizing plays. Davis and all the backs now understand their objectives on each play, rather than just knowing what they have to do.

“So through all of the Zoom meetings that we’ve had when we couldn’t be in front of them, we really focused on raising the knowledge of our players, and I think particularly the guys in my room have done a good job,” Powell said.

Powell has three primary objectives he looks for his guys to do each week. He wants his guys to protect the football, protect the quarterback, and extend plays. Powell believed his guys were good in the first two categories on Saturday, but would like to see more big runs from his guys moving forward.

“So we did not extend plays as well as I would have liked to have seen and that’s one area we will continue to work on,” Powell said on Tuesday.

The running backs need to get better in that last category overall, but Davis did display the most ability to find extra yardage on Saturday. There was another area where Pitt needed to show improvement this year and that was scoring in the red zone. The Panthers did just that on Saturday by scoring six rushing touchdowns inside the red zone. For Davis and all the other backs, that was a point of pride heading into this season.

“I’m just going to let you know now, you’re going to see more touchdowns in the red zone,” Davis explained. “Everybody just has a better understanding this year. Everybody knows what’s going on, no one is lost and we have a second year under our belt with Coach Whip.”

The Pitt running back room is still crowded heading into Saturday's game with Syracuse, even if Davis posted the best numbers last week. Senior A.J. Davis earned the start last week. Israel Abanikanda, Daniel Carter, and Todd Sibley all scored touchdowns against the Governors. For now, Davis is happy to share the work load with the others.

“It feels good being able to have guys you can rely on, guy you can lean on,” Davis said of his fellow backs. "If anything happens to one of us, we can look to the next person and know that we can rely on the next guy and we can put the next guy in.”

Even in that crowded room, it appears it will be Davis getting that first opportunity on Saturday. Pat Narduzzi revealed on Thursday that Davis will be the starter for Syracuse, and what he did against Austin Peay played a big role on that.

"We’ll play them all and see what they’ve got, but Vince is the guy that showed up last week, so he’ll start," Narduzzi said.