Pitt 5 things: ACC Network analyst, ex-Miami coach Mark Richt misses game, just not ‘wildly dramatic’ changes
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Mark Richt stopped coaching five years ago after 171 victories in 18 seasons, 15 at Georgia, three at Miami. Yet the sights and sounds — even smells — of the game he loves linger.
Now an analyst for the ACC Network, Richt visited Pitt practice this week. The stage set up on the Beano Cook Fields had Richt and his colleagues — Wes Durham, E.J. Manuel and Kelsey Riggs — with their backs to the field.
“We couldn’t see everything, but I could hear everything,” Richt said. “I could hear the coaches coaching, getting after them. I could hear the players have the enthusiasm. I could hear the crack of the pads. It just brought back good memories for me as a coach to hear and smell football. It’s just fun to be around a bunch of guys who love the game.”
But the game has changed dramatically.
“Wildly dramatic,” Richt said, making the correction. “College football is equivalent to having unrestricted free agency and no salary cap. It’s true. You can transfer anywhere you want wherever you want, be eligible immediately. Then, you get NIL money to which there is no limit to what you can get. You got kids coming out of high school making $2 million a year.”
Given all those changes, does Richt miss the game?
“I don’t. I miss this, purely coaching the game of football day in and day out. Watching guys grow from boyhood to manhood in their lives is so much fun. I miss that. All the other headaches, I don’t know if I could be dealing with them any good or not. Delegate, right?”
The ACC Network’s visit coincides with the imminent return of college football.
Durham, who has been broadcasting ACC football, basketball and baseball games since 1995, said it would be a mistake to ignore Pitt when projecting the teams that will play for the conference championship.
“It’s almost like an annual rite. Nobody talks about Pitt,” Durham said. “Their continuity, their brand and their culture, it’s real. I believe in them.
“We all, it was easy to pick Florida State and Clemson in some order, right? Then, the question was who was going to be the third-best team. (Pitt is) clearly capable of being the third-best team in this league, maybe one or two depending on what happens around them.”
While waiting for the start of the season — two Saturdays from now — here are five thoughts to ponder.
1. What does the transfer portal teach?
Pitt lost 12 players to the transfer portal this offseason, but only two — quarterback Kedon Slovis (BYU) and defensive end John Morgan (Arkansas) — ended up at another Power 5 school.
Who can tell for sure, but it doesn’t look like Pitt will regret losing those players, with the progress Phil Jurkovec, Dayon Hayes and Nahki Johnson have made at those positions.
Jordan Addison (USC, 2022) is an exception, but defensive coordinator Randy Bates said the Pitt culture keeps the best players at home.
“Our culture here is to work and continue to get better. We keep coaching them. We don’t give up on them,” he said. “The difference between us and everybody else is when you get in the transfer portal, that’s quitting. Our guys don’t quit. They keep fighting, and, quite frankly, they learn lessons in life that a lot of people don’t.”
2. Fresh legs at running back?
All of a sudden, a fifth contender has emerged in the quest for playing time at running back.
Coach Pat Narduzzi said freshman Montravius Lloyd (5-foot-10, 185 pounds) started drawing attention this week in a live session at the end of practice Wednesday.
“Montravius has stepped up,” Narduzzi said. “He’s getting better every day. He might be able to play for us this year, too.”
Lloyd played running back, slot receiver and linebacker at Lakewood High School in St. Petersburg, Fla., amassing 1,662 all-purpose yards, 63 tackles, eight sacks, two interceptions and two blocked kicks over his junior and senior seasons.
During camp, Narduzzi has put Lloyd in a room with freshman cornerbacks Jesse Anderson and Shadarian “Drip” Harrison, all Florida products. About Harrison’s nickname, Lloyd said he doesn’t know where it originated.
“That’s what he prefers. I just call my boy Drip,” he said.
All three competed against each other in high school, with Anderson from Fort Lauderdale and Harrison from Lakeland. Lloyd covered Anderson in one game.
“He caught one lucky pass,” Lloyd said.
There is a definite Florida feel to Pitt’s roster, with 15 Floridians. Cornerback Marquis Williams (Pompano Beach) is a cousin to Lloyd and free safety P.J. O’Brien (Pompano Beach).
“I feel like south Florida kids have that dog in them,” O’Brien said. “We really don’t have too much down there. It’s football.”
3. Start the day with juice
Speaking of dogs, there are no dog days of summer for O’Brien, who is just grateful to have the opportunity to play football on scholarship.
“I’m a juice guy,” he said. “I wake up in the morning, grab some orange juice, eat my breakfast and it’s time to go. There are a lot of people wishing they could do this every morning. Thank God, every morning we get to come to work.”
4. Who’s the fastest?
There has been friendly trash talk among teammates throughout camp, some of it concerning who are the fastest runners on the team. Wide receivers Bub Means and Che Nwabuko and cornerback A.J. Woods are among the contenders.
Means recognizes Nwabuko is an indoor track athlete at Pitt, and he respects his speed.
“Che is fast, like literally real track-speed fast. But ask him has he ever beat me in a race,” Means said. “I don’t want to say anything else. That boy did run a 4.3, though.”
O’Brien suggested matching wide receivers against the defensive backs in a relay race.
He laughed when he said it, but there’s a good chance he wouldn’t turn down the opportunity. Narduzzi would veto the idea in a second. He doesn’t need his fastest athletes pulling a hamstring before the season.
5. Competition at defensive end
Defensive ends Hayes and West Mifflin’s Johnson are getting serious competition from redshirt freshman Sam Okunlola.
Offensive lineman Ryan Baer has seen enough of his classmate in pass-rushing drills to know he has a future at Pitt.
“He’s different from a lot of people,” Baer said. “He’s so in love with football. That’s all he does. He watches film. He watches any tackle that he might go up against. He just finds any little key.”
Okunlola (6-4, 245) uses his speed to try to outfox offensive lineman.
“With him being so skinny, he can move,” Baer said, “and with the speed that he can create, he can create power for his size. His feet are so fast. He foot-freezes you and, then, he can surprise you with power, too.”