Pitt Take 5: Season reaches critical point on the road to Virginia
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Fans wrapped up in the College Football Playoff rankings might not remember the final score of the Pitt-Virginia game Saturday in Charlottesville, Va.
But the game against the Cavaliers finds Pitt’s season at a crossroads. If the Panthers win each of their remaining games against Virginia, Duke and Miami — all three unranked — an 8-4 record to take into a bowl won’t look as bad as 4-4 looked two weeks ago.
But a loss in any of those three would give Pitt its 12th five-loss (or more) season in the past 13.
After a 2021 ACC championship and high hopes entering this season, Pitt’s players don’t want to be lumped into that group. Here are some other thoughts heading into the noon kickoff:
1. Top-heavy ACC
This is not meant as an excuse for Pitt failing to repeat as ACC or even ACC Coastal champion. Pitt’s schedule wasn’t daunting — it will end up playing only two of the six conference teams currently receiving votes in the Associated Press Top 25 poll — and there was experience and serious talent on the defensive line, secondary and at running back.
Something went wrong.
But you can add Pitt to the long list of Coastal champions who failed to repeat. Only Virginia Tech has done it (twice) since 2005, and it’s been 11 years since it most recently happened.
From 2013-19, all seven Coastal teams took a ride on the merry-go-round and won the division. None won the title game. In fact, when Pitt defeated Wake Forest last year, it was the first Coastal team to win the overall championship in 10 tries.
In this top-heavy ACC season, No. 12 Clemson and No. 15 North Carolina — both unbeaten in the conference — likely will win the Atlantic and Coastal divisions and meet in Charlotte, N.C., on Dec. 3 to decide the champion. Maybe neither team has clinched mathematically, but both hold a two-game lead in the loss column with three to play.
2. Wanted: Reliable punter
For eight seasons, Pitt coaches Paul Chryst and Pat Narduzzi had no need to worry about their punters. Fourth down meant mostly reliability from Ryan Winslow and Kirk Christodoulou from 2014-21. Winslow earned All-ACC honors as a senior and even executed a pass off a fake punt to help beat Syracuse in 2015. Christodoulou, a semifinalist for the Ray Guy Award in 2020, dropped five punts inside the 20-yard line in the ACC championship game.
But the position has presented one problem after another this season to the point that Pitt used three punters — Sam Vander Haar, Cam Guess and Caleb Junko — last Saturday. Narduzzi said all three will travel to Virginia, but Junko, a walk-on redshirt freshman who averaged 43 yards on two punts, will handle the duties. He added it’s a “week-to-week” situation.
Guess’ 2-yard punt, just by mere mathematics, was one of the worst punts in history, but at least he averted real disaster by securing a high snap. Vander Haar had two blocked earlier this season. Finally, Vander Haar’s last punt to the 1 against Syracuse helped preserve the victory, but even that didn’t totally please Narduzzi. A punter at Youngstown Ursuline High School and at Rhodes Island, he wanted it aimed toward the sideline.
“I’ve coached for a long time, and I’ve never had a situation quite like this one,” special teams coach Andre Powell said. “It’s been quite the unique experience, and we’re still hashing our way through it. It’s not going as smoothly as we anticipated. Let’s leave it at that.”
3. Ground-game fallout?
If you were to rank all of Pitt’s shortcomings, the failure to make tight end Gavin Bartholomew a bigger part of the passing game is in the top three.
Despite his athletic gifts and aggressive style, he has caught only 17 passes among his 30 targets in nine games. His average of 15.1 yards per catch is second among Pitt players with at least 10 receptions.
Weeks ago, when he was confronted by 5-foot-11 Tennessee safety Trevon Flowers, the 6-5 Bartholomew said, “Screw it. I’m jumping him.” And he did on the way to a highlight reel-worthy 57-yard touchdown.
So why is he averaging only 28.6 yards per game?
When Narduzzi was asked if Bartholomew’s blocking duties in the run game are keeping him out of pass patterns, the coach didn’t disagree.
“We’d like to get him the ball more. There’s no question. We’d like to get it to (wide receiver) Bub Means more,” he said.
“If you go back and watch the tape, there’s a big post that if we lay that thing out there, it’s going to be a 60-, 70-yard touchdown. We’d like to get it to everybody, but when you’re running the ball a little bit more than you’re throwing it, then that’s going to happen.
“So we’ll see. There was one he was open and we’ve got to get it to him, as well. There was probably another one.”
4. Playing keepaway
The idea is to score more points than the opponent, and Pitt is a mediocre eighth in the ACC with an average of 29.2 points per game. Pitt has only 53 points in its past three games.
But the other goal is to keep the other team from scoring, and the best way to do that is being stingy with the football.
To that end, the Panthers lead the ACC and are 10th in the nation in time of possession (33 minutes, 23 seconds, its highest average in eight years). That’s more than two minutes better than last year, when Kenny Pickett kept giving the ball back to the other team by leading an offense that scored 76 touchdowns.
5. Injury update
Narduzzi spoke a bit more openly than usual about the possible return from injuries of center Owen Drexel and running back Izzy Abanikanda.
Drexel, who has missed the past seven games, dressed last week but didn’t play.
“He’s getting really close,” Narduzzi said. “Last week was his first week back practicing a little bit, so I think he’s closer this week than he obviously was last week.”
Abanikanda didn’t play in the Syracuse game, but Narduzzi indicated after the game that the ACC’s leading rusher would return against Virginia. He said Abanikanda is on track to play.
“I think he is. We’ll find out.”