This is a very long one folks; enjoy it for your weekend reading pleasure.
As we all know that in any Pitt pre-season there is nothing even remotely negative written about the team, players and the coaching staff by the local media, especially with a brand new head coach such as we now have. The only straight opinions you’ll get will be from some local bloggers and maybe a recruiting website that follows the Panthers. Keep that in mind while you read this article please and realize there is certainly some good to go along with the not-so good… like the ‘good news’ media has been feeding us all preseason.
We all have thoughts about what’s good with Pitt in 2015; here are my thoughts about what I see and feel. Earlier in the pre-season we mentioned that we would hold off on a season W/L projection until fall camp had ended. Now is that time and here’s mine.
We are a week until the start of the 2015 season and the real beginning of year one of ‘The Narduzzi Experiment’. We’ve been getting camp reports, scrimmage stats, leaks about this and news about that and we have all been doing what fans always do at this point. We are wondering just how good or how bad the team in going to be this year.
Every season is a blank slate to start anew, especially with a shiny new Head Coach and his eager staff coaches. Those new additions add another layer of mystery and excitement for us when looking at what will happen over the next 12 weeks. What it does also is add a new layer of concern, and to some fans, worry because of the unknowns with the staff.
Just the other day Chas posted an article about Pitt contribution to the sportswriter’s All-75 year team and we are proud of that; we consistently put good players into the NFL where they become all-pros; we continually have All-Americans and All-Conference players, etc. Yet we are also constantly at the .500 won/loss mark, again as Chas pointed out.
In other words all the awards, accolades, hype and optimism is secondary to the Pitt Panthers as a team, with team synergy, going out and actually winning more football games than we lose. We just don’t do that on any sort of a consistent basis and quite honestly I have neither seen nor heard anything concrete that tells me we’ll be much better than six or seven wins this season also…maybe.
The ‘normal’ Pitt fan’s viewpoint toward their favorite team is fascinating and that’s why we write these rather in-depth Blather articles. It is so we get the most feedback as possible from our readers/commenters who make up that fan base. On the whole Pitt fans are an optimistic bunch and are looking forward to see us rack up more wins, maybe even a bunch more, in 2015.
So why do Chas, myself and many other Pitt fans, when we sit down and really look at what the Pitt program has going into this season, shy away from that same optimistic feeling? We do it because there are valid reasons to do so and here are some of them.
This offseason has been one of consistent change… some obviously good ones such as the new Chancellor firing the not well liked AD Steve Pederson as soon as feasible.
But I wonder if some of the other positive’ changes being mentioned are really that. Our new AD had zero input into the hiring of the HC. How strange and unusual is that to happen when hiring a HC? As a matter of fact Scott Barnes is in a real sense somewhat beholden to his own subordinate employee as Narduzzi was on the search committee which selected him. That is something out of the usual and unproven for success.
Then there is the change at the top of the football heap. The truth here is we don’t know squat about how the new HC and his new staff are going to produce at Pitt this season. At least when a new HC has previous experience in the top position elsewhere you can look at his track record and form an opinion but our guy is a rookie in every sense of the word when it comes to being a HC.
Everyone is excited about the national Best Defensive Coordinator Broyles Award buzz because Narduzzi won it in 2013 and our new DC Josh Conklin was on the final list in 2014 but, as we see time and again, awards mean about as much as the material they are sculpted from.
If we are comparing our current HC’s defensive coordinating prowess to our departed HC’s offensive coordinating prowess, because that is the only direct comparison of the two I can find, then here’s something to sink your teeth into; in the five Big Ten matchups between the two coordinators, Paul Chryst’s offenses scored an average of 31 ppg on Narduzzi’s defenses.
Huh, now who would have thought that?
I make that point for this reason only; it is silly to look at what any coach did before they became a first time HC and then believe that is going to make or break what the team will do under his rookie command. It just doesn’t work that way.
We fans, the local and national media all thought Pitt’s offense was going to explode in 2012 with offensive guru Chryst as our new head coach. But in his first year we posted a 6-7 record mainly due to the fact that we were 71st in total offense at 390 ypg and an even worse 74th in scoring offense at 26.6 ppg. Here, see for yourself…
Not only was the offense disappointing but ironically the Pitt defense that year was the best we had had in a long time since DW’s 2009 team. In ’12 we were 17th in total defense with 330 ypg and 23rd in scoring defense at 21.1ppg, yet the Chryst offense sucked and limited us down to only six wins.
What all that means is that it is entirely practical to believe that our defense could actually be worse this season when the guy who is considered the greatest thing to college defenses since sliced bread is the HC on the sideline as opposed to the DC calling defenses in the booth.
If we think Narduzzi is going to be in DC Conklin’s ear dispensing pearls of wisdom and issuing in-game orders during the season we’ve another think coming. It is just as possible that Narduzzi will take a large hands-off approach to the defense, aside from the pre-season programmatic planning, and concentrate on being the program’s CEO vice his playing DC all over again. It is what he said he’d do and it isn’t out of the ordinary at all for a HC to do that. It is what needs to be done when you are a new Leader.
What about our returning players and new recruits and transfers?
A lot of Pitt fans have been saying that Narduzzi and staff have, can or will, recruit better than our last run of coaches. Nothing we have seen shows any inkling of that. His ‘gets’ so far are average 3* ballplayers who haven’t shown anything yet. Some will do and as early as this season maybe, but let’s not hold our breath on that issue.
Hell, even his defensive recruiting isn’t any better than what it Pitt had over the last three years. All that could change as the years roll on and let’s hope it does. We know Narduzzi is a strong personality and sometimes that alone can sway a recruit and his parents, but as with almost everything in recruiting the yardstick of success is winning the games and establishing local trust.
New Pitt HC Dave Wannstedt had that going for him in spades as a former Pitt player and all around Yinzer who was in good with the local football network. Narduzzi is walking into this situation cold and inexperienced and it showed from his hire in December until LOI Signing Day.
It is one thing to win six games and then try to recruit the best and the brightest. It is a whole other thing to win 10 games and try to do the same. The first is hard and that is what Narduzzi is inheriting; the second is a hell of a lot easier and needs to happen to build a strong program.
Fans point to Narduzzi getting transfers in for immediate help as a proactive and good thing but the fact is that at the end of training camp not one of those transfers seems to have even scratched the prospective two deep let alone will fill a starting position.
DE Allen Edwards doesn’t look to have much impact on that position and DT Mark Scarpinato, a seldom used journeyman who just happened to know Narduzzi at his prior team, isn’t mentioned for the interior DL two deep either.
JUCO WR Rafael Araujo-Lopes hasn’t stood out in any way at all in camp. He didn’t catch a pass in the 2nd scrimmage and I don’t think he did in the first scrimmage either.
The ironic thing about these transfers is that the best hope for an immediate impact from a new guy is Nate Peterman at QB and that is the position that has already had a starter named to play it in the incumbent Chad Voytik.
That leaves us coming out of fall camp with the exact same personnel in place that got us to a 6-7 season last year. Yes, we have a freshman or two who will contribute but that happens every season with every Pitt team. I’m not jumping up and down about the possibility of any true FR making a big impact on the team’s fortunes this season save maybe 4* S Jordan Whitehead in the return game.
What do Pitt fans see as far as talent on the field goes that points us to more than 6 or 7 wins, even if that? We all hope Conklin will make a difference at DC but don’t take a close look at his actual track record at FIU unless you want to start worrying. He’ll make us more aggressive in trying to get the ball on turnovers, which we desperately have to be better at, but we may well give up more big plays in doing so.
Narduzzi’s approach to leaving the Cornerbacks in 1 on 1 coverage may backfire in a big way also. From the Post-Gazette:
And it’s not just a mentality change that Hill (DBs coach) is preaching, either. He said the defensive backs have increased the number of ball drills they do in a given practice and that he also hopes Coach Pat Narduzzi’s man-to-man concept will result in a more aggressive secondary.
Rather than worry about various assignments and concepts, Pitt’s cornerbacks primarily will be matched up with an opposing receiver and just told to guard him wherever he goes.
Hmmm…, “…just told to guard him wherever he goes.” Sure coach, no problem there.
Our CBs coming out of this camp aren’t any better than we have had in the last few years. We are retreading who we put out there last year and just switching some people around to different spots on the two-deep. The talent there is average and since we were 43rd in the nation in Passing Efficiency Defense last year I don’t think anyone can say is a part of the defense guaranteed to improve. We gave up some huge passing plays last season and this new approach isn’t going to diminish that.
Our LB corps is underwhelming to say the least. The returning starter is target #1 of our fan’s disappointment and the two other prospective starters couldn’t beat out two average-at-best LBs over the last three years. Journeyman LB Mike Caprara, as much as I have liked the kid since his recruitment, is looking like he’ll the first LB off the bench in case any of the starters falter. Not too many happy making thoughts about the LBs there. More speed is the best we can hope for.
We have across the line injuries on the OL with perhaps our best returning lineman, Jaryd Jones-Smith, out for the year. Add to that it looks like we are have a kid, rsFR Brian O’Neill play OL who 1) never played that position in HS (he was a TE and DE there) and 2) was the 4rd string TE up until four weeks ago. From the Trib:
Stuck on a crowded depth chart at tight end, O’Neill was called into coach Pat Narduzzi’s office for a meeting at the end of spring drills. Narduzzi had a shortage at tackle after Jaryd Jones-Smith’s season-ending injury, so he proposed a position change.
“It was more of a conversation back and forth,” O’Neill said. “I wasn’t forced to do anything.” O’Neill talked it over with his family, but the decision was an easy one, he said. “It’s what the team needed,” he said, “and I went to him the next day and said, ‘I want to move to tackle.’ I haven’t looked back since.” and…
After less than one training camp at a new position, O’Neill has moved onto the first team because of injuries. First to Jones-Smith and later to center Artie Rowell, which forced Peterson to shift Alex Officer from right guard to center and Alex Bookser from right tackle to guard. When Rowell returns, Bookser and O’Neill will compete for the starting job at tackle.
Our Center, Artie Rowell, who did an OK job in 10 quarters of play before a major injury put him out for the rest of the season, didn’t practice much at all this camp due to other injuries. Rowell is a fan favorite but he really hasn’t done anything extraordinary in his time at Pitt. To date his claim to fame is that he:
“…garnered All-Bowl Team recognition from NFL.com and CollegeFootballNews.com for his performance in Pitt’s 30-27 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl victory over Bowling Green.”
I think we all like Rowell so much because he looks like the 35 year old plumber who shows up at your house at any time, day or night and in any weather condition without charging you extra.
If that about the OL isn’t an area of concern it should be, at this point we have no idea what the OL was really going to be like after losing Rotheram and Clemmings… now we really don’t know what we’ll have.
Wait, our punter Ryan Winslow and place kicker Chris Blewitt are pretty good and with a real Special Teams coach in Andre’ Powell splitting time between the ST and the RBs we may see improvement there and that has to help us win some close games. By the way and contrary to public belief, our 2014 team had the exact same arrangement with a staff coach Chris Haering doing double duty as a ST coordinator just as Coach Powell will this season.
But here is what makes me wonder about this season the most.
When I got into discussions with others at the in the spring and fall practices who aren’t Pitt football staff employees, and the media in attendance, I have noticed a marked lack of high excitement of the sort we see among the Pitt fans.
Now, that doesn’t mean we are going to suck because they aren’t jumping up and down. It just means that people who are around the program day in and day out are holding the same ‘wait and see’ attitude that some of us not-so-excited fans are.
That is reasonable IMO because, as we have said many times on here, we’ve seen it all before at Pitt and we’ll see it all again… but if you are convinced we’ll have a big season then show me something more concrete than being excited about it happening.
The ‘whispered about in public’ assertion that the first three games will be tough ones for us to win with a new coaching staff is certainly valid, and that includes the YSU and Akron teams my friends. Yes, we should never lose to YSU or Akron yet we have done just that over the last three years. Granted those losses were with a different coaching staff but maybe it’s about time to stop saying that particular mantra.
I’ll say this about the opener. Three years ago I was at a tailgate the morning of the opening game against YSU when someone yelled out that Chryst had suspended six players for the day. I turned to the guys I was talking with and I said “We’re going to lose this game”. It was that plain and simple. Obviously that wasn’t well received and people looked at me like I was crazy and/or a raving fool.
But I didn’t state that because of the talent level of the suspended players that wouldn’t be on the field, actually those six players who sat out probably wouldn’t have made a big difference in the outcome anyway. I did it because it happened with a first year HC going into his first ever game as The Boss.
I firmly believed those actions on the player’s and the HC part would impact the team from the morning bus ride over to Heinz until the final gun and it did. We all know what happened as Pitt came out of the tunnel and fell flat on its face.
I’m getting much the same vibe now for the YSU game as I did then. It is exactly the same circumstances with the coaching staffs, but on top of it all we are playing without two proven talents and their experience on the field in WR Tyler Boyd and DE Rori Blair. Our QB Chad Voytik has no experience playing without his safety blanket Tyler Boyd in the huddle and our OL is in a state of uncertainty.
The injuries to Jones-Smith, RB Rachid Ibrahim and Rowell and we have some actual problems. I think we fans are underestimating how the loss of Ibrahim, with his tale and experience, will hurt the team.
In addition, the DE position is up in the air and DL Darryl Render may not play due to injury. Both Blair and Render are experienced guys we can ill afford to lose from an already suspect defense. Yes fellow Pitt fans, it is still suspect as hell until it shows us otherwise.
Next week we face YSU’s HC Bo Pelini (who is way more qualified and experienced as a HC than Narduzzi is), Ron Stoops and Carl Pelini as co-DCs and there you have an experienced staff of coaches who have cut their teeth in tough conferences against good Big Ten opponents and who had as much or more success than our staff guys have had at their last jobs.
Hey, Shane Montgomery is no slouch at the Offensive Coordinator position either and had been mentioned a few time in the past to be an OC candidate at D1 schools. His offense scored pretty well against us when they scored 31 points against what turned out to be pretty decent Pitt defense. He can call games just fine.
I’m not making any bets on that YSU game at all because I’m that concerned. We’ll most probably go out and win it (let’s hope so because we really need that to happen!) but anyone who thinks that game is a lock for a Pitt win has an amazingly short memory.
Some fans think we’ll better our six win record by virtue of the fact that we while we lost close games last year with a bumbling HC somehow a new staff is going to turn those outcomes 180º around. How that is going to be sure to happen?
We did come that close to scoring just a few needed points for at least two more wins in 2014 (Iowa, Duke and maybe NC?) with a guy who was well steeped in the offensive side of the game. What exactly makes us believe we’ll be any better with in-game/crunch time decisions with Narduzzi who has self confessed he had never even been in an offensive meeting room his whole career up until this spring? A HC who never cared about the offensive side of the game other than to defend against it?
All that said, Narduzzi set a goal of a 57% increase in… something that I can’t quite figure out. Here’s what he has to say about that at the ending of camp:
Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi asked his players to get 3 percent better every day during training camp. It turned out that was asking too much. Prior to the 19th of 21 scheduled practice sessions Thursday, Narduzzi did the math and said Pitt is not 57 percent better.
“Maybe 50 percent,” he said. “I don’t know if we got the whole 7 extra percentages there. We’ll find out as we go. “You would like to get that 3 percent, but I don’t think you got it every day. I truly don’t. It’s tapered off. You have camp legs right now and I think guys are mentally and physically, `Is this almost over?’
Not to be a complete ass and because everyone in a serious leadership position does things differently but with all the talk we got in the off season of ‘definable goals’ this is what we hear going into the season opener.
But that’s OK and quirky and totally Narduzzi from what I’ve seen and heard from him. The proof will be shown on the field of play anyway, not in some vague terms uttered during end of camp interviews when there is absolutely of substance that he’s willing to talk about.
Hey, I also feel that the changes Pitt made can and very well may have a more positive than negative impact on the program and on our win/loss record. I’m just not 100% sold we’ll see that writ large in 2015 given the team this new staff is inheriting, especially on the defensive side of the ball.
Where we will see greater growth is as the first year ends and then going into Narduzzi’s second year as the HC. He’ll have more of his own players onboard, Conklin’s and Chaney’s schematic programs will be much more familiar for the troops, thus making them easier to play in.
But the biggest change will be with the 105 players and the 10 coaches working together and getting to know one another’s strength and weaknesses. That goes for the players learning the staff’s strengths and weaknesses also which is just as, if not more, important than the other way around.
I said I’d wait until the fall camp is over to make a prediction and here it goes…Below are our opponents and what happen between us in the past (from Pitt Athletics)
Sept. 5, Youngstown State
Pat Narduzzi makes his Pitt coaching debut against his hometown team, the YSU Penguins, led by former Nebraska coach Bo Pelini.
Sept. 12, at Akron
The Panthers travel to Akron to face Coach Terry Bowden’s improving Zips.
Sept. 19, at Iowa
Upper St. Clair native Kirk Ferentz has led Iowa to 12 bowl games in the past 14 seasons.
Oct. 3, at Virginia Tech*
Pitt has won five of its past six meetings with Virginia Tech, including a 21-16 win last season.
Oct. 10, Virginia*
The Panthers’ late rally fell just short in a 24-19 loss in Charlottesville last year.
Oct. 17, at Georgia Tech*
The Yellow Jackets finished with a No. 7 national ranking after storming to an 11-3 record and Orange Bowl victory in 2014.
Oct. 24, at Syracuse*
The Panthers and Orange have played every year since 1955.
Oct. 29 (Thurs.), North Carolina*
Each of the last three meetings between Pitt and UNC has been decided by a late fourth-quarter score.
Nov. 7, Notre Dame
Drama has ruled recent Pitt-ND series history. The average margin of the past six games has been 4.5 points. Pitt triumphed in the last meeting, 28-21, in 2013.
Nov. 14, at Duke*
The combined score of the past two meetings is 106 to 106. In 2014, Duke outlasted Pitt in two OTs, 51-48.
Nov. 21, Louisville*
Pitt and Louisville meet for the first time as ACC members. The all-time series is tied, 8-8.
Nov. 27 (Fri.), Miami*
The Panthers snapped an eight-game series skid with a 35-23 win at Miami in 2014.
I look at this regular season schedule and see a possibly solid five wins coming our way. I think we take just two of the first three games and we upset someone favored later in the season, maybe Notre Dame at home. That gives us six wins on the season with chances being better that we get a 7th win over a 7th loss.
6 wins and 6 losses with a 7th win if we take the first three games in a row, get some needed breaks and the number of turnovers we are expecting.