In this week’s 3-2-1 column, we’re of course talking about the Tennessee game tomorrow. The Panthers venture down to Knoxville for a key non-conference game in Neyland Stadium.
THREE THINGS WE KNOW
Pitt faces a true road test for the first time in over a year
The COVID-19 pandemic changed a lot about college football during the 2020 season. Perhaps the biggest change last season was the amount of fans allowed inside the respective stadiums across the sport. At Heinz Field for instance, most of Pitt’s games did not permit fans, not even players’ families into the games. Other venues allowed limited attendance. Pitt traveled down to Clemson, which is normally the toughest environment to play in the ACC, but only 18,819 fans were at Memorial Stadium on that November evening.
It will look a lot different tomorrow.
College football is known for the crowds, tailgates, bands, and cheerleaders. The pageantry and traditions of Saturdays in the fall is what separates the sport from the professional game played on Sundays. With a lot of the marquee games in college football being played at neutral venues last week, this weekend should look like, well, college football, and the Panthers will get to experience it.
Pitt is heading to Neyland Stadium, the fifth largest venue in college football. Tennessee is known for its passionate fan base. In the team’s opening game against Bowling Green, the Vols hosted over 84,000 fans last Thursday. Tomorrow, it may be closer to the full 102,000 capacity of the stadium. It has been a while since Pitt had to face that kind of atmosphere on the road, especially given last year’s limitations with crowds.
Pitt played Virginia Tech and Penn State on the road in 2019, two of the tougher venues for road teams in college football. The Panthers are an experienced team, and many players that played in those contests are still around, so that gives this team so feeling of what to expect.
Pat Narduzzi started preparing his team for this game during fall camp. Pitt practiced with crowd noise blaring over the speakers in August, and that of course continued this week as the team prepared for the Volunteers not only on the field, but what they will face from the crowd. When asked about it on Thursday, Narduzzi said he ‘feels good’ about how they prepared for it and doesn’t see an issue heading into the contest. The crowd has a chance to be a factor on Saturday, but with a veteran quarterback in Kenny Pickett leading the offense, it should not surprise this team.
Tennessee is a team in transition
I think the biggest thing we know about this Tennessee team is that we don’t really know anything at all. There are still a lot of questions about this team that is coming off of a 3-win season and in just the second game of the Josh Heupel era. The week one game against Bowling Green may have revealed some clues about the Vols, but also brought more questions.
The intrigue around this team starts with quarterback Joe Milton. He is a transfer from the University of Michigan. Milton completed 11-of-23 passing attempts for 139 yards and one touchdown last week. He rushed 44 yards and two touchdowns, but was sacked three times as well. Milton had a rocky career for the Wolverines, as he led the team to a 2-3 record in five starts a season ago. He posted just four passing touchdowns, threw four picks, and was sacked eight times, and averaged 2.9 yards per carry. Can Milton be the spark for Tennessee this season, or will fans be clamoring for promising sophomore Harrison Bailey before too long?
Another thing about this Tennessee team is that we saw them rush for 326 yards in week one. By nature, teams coached by Josh Heupel have always slanted towards being pass-first, so again, was that a week one thing or do they feel more comfortable running behind talented junior Tiyon Evans (116 yards in week one)?
I think that’s another thing to consider. Does Heuepel have the quarterback to run what he really wants to, or will he have to adapt before his recruiting can get his personnel in the system? Tennessee is just a weird case to consider all the way around. The Volunteers have a talented roster, as they recruit at a top-20 level almost annually, but failed coaching hires and playing in the highly competitive SEC have left the program in no mans land for some time now.
We can sit and analyze what this team is, but I think the biggest thing we know, is that we don’t know who they are just yet. For Pitt, catching the Volunteers early in the season before they have a true team identity could be the best thing.
Pitt’s defense will be attacking
Moving onto my next point, Pitt won’t be waiting around to see if Joe Milton can develop or how Heupel coaches this team, they’re going to go after them. If we know one thing about Pitt, the Panthers are going to rush the passer at will on defense. The Panthers have the most sacks in the nation over the span of the past two seasons.
The Pitt defense was credited with five sacks and nine quarterback hurries in the team’s season opening win against UMass. Pitt dialed up blitzes from its linebackers, and also saw some production from simply rushing the down defensive linemen, even without senior defensive end Deslin Alexandre, who missed the game due to an injury.
Tennessee will play with tempo, something the team has practiced against all week according to Narduzzi. The Panthers have seen this exact tempo before, with a pair of games against Heupel-led UCF teams in 2018 and 2019. The 2018 game was a disaster for Pitt, but the 2019 game the Panthers defense made some plays against this style of high-powered offense.
Pitt finished with six sacks, seven hurries, and generated two turnovers. Sure, it was a 35-34 Pitt win, but the Panthers limited UCF early on and built up a lead before coming from behind to secure the win. I think that game certainly can be a learning tool for both Heupel and Narduzzi, to see how each team will attack their respective schemes.
I think Pitt’s advantage in all of this lies with its experience. This is a team that has been playing this style of defense under this coaching regime that has been pretty well established. UCF was a well-oiled machine on offense by the time Pitt faced them in 2019, and it’s hard to expect Tennessee is there already in the second game of this regime playing with a quarterback that lost his job in Michigan.
TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE
How will the reps at running back get split?
Pitt used all six of its scholarship running backs last week for a combined 161 yards on 29 carries for four touchdowns. The running game started slow, but ultimately found a rhythm and churned out a productive day. It’s clear that it won’t be a six running back system moving forward, but against an opponent like UMass, the coaches were able to split up the reps and get everyone involved.
So how will the running back rotation look this week?
Narduzzi said they have cut it down to three during his press briefing Thursday, and if the depth chart is any indication, we know the three are Israel Abanikanda, AJ Davis, and Vincent Davis. Is there maybe a world where it’s true freshman Rodney Hammond also in this top group? Possibly, but it would be a bit of an upset.
Now the order of those three backs is an entirely different story at this point, though we have some context clues and hunches we can go off of for now. We can start with Izzy Abanikanda. He was the top back in spring ball and was widely the most talked about running back during fall camp. He was the second back used last week, but I suspect he’s going to be the top option this week, and perhaps moving forward for this team. Abanikanda has the edge over the other backs in terms of physical tools. He’s the only one that 5’11” and 220-pounds with 4.4 speed, after all.
Vincent Davis would be my guess as the second player in this mix, and his advantage over the others is pretty simple: he’s the only one that actually produced last season. Davis has 978 career rushing yards, 30 catches for 191 yards, and 13 total touchdowns wearing a Pitt uniform. He also had a dazzling 247-yard game against Georgia Tech at the end of last season. Davis was the fourth back in the game for Pitt last week, but his absence in the first half may have been intentional…perhaps.
AJ Davis brings the most experience out of this group. He was the team’s leading rusher in 2019, and has been with the program since 2017. Davis won’t blow teams away with his speed, but he gets the yards in front of him, and is considered to be the team’s best pass blocker among the backs.
I think that’s how the usage shakes out, maybe not so much of the actual order in which they appear in the game. They may throw AJ Davis out there first, depending on the play call, specifically if they him him protecting Pickett. We’ll see. I think the question of how Pitt uses its running backs for the rest of the season can, and will be answered on Saturday.
Can Pitt notch a milestone on the road?
This game at Tennessee represents some demons this Pitt program needs to exercise. First of all, Pitt will be looking to win its first road non-conference game since 2015. Pitt defeated Akron on a rainy September night by a score of 24-7. In Pitt’s road non-conference games since:
September 19, 2015: Iowa 27, Pitt 24
September 17, 2016: Oklahoma State 45, Pitt 38
September 9, 2017: Penn State 33, Pitt 14
September 29, 2018: UCF 45, Pitt 14
October 13, 2018: Notre Dame 19, Pitt 14
September 14, 2019: Penn State 17, Pitt 10
That is a six-game losing streak this program needs to break, and being a 3.5-point favorite on Saturday, at least represents a good chance the Panthers can snap the streak.
BUT We’re still not done talking about this yet…there’s more.
Pitt hasn’t defeated a major college football program on the road since 2008, when a LeSean McCoy-led team defeated Notre Dame in four overtimes by a score of 36-33. That’s another notch the Panthers can carve out on Saturday with a win going up against an SEC team. Aside from the games mentioned above, we’re talking about the loss to Russell Wilson and NC State in 2009, the season-opening loss at Utah in 2010, that controversial loss to Notre Dame in 2012 – I mean you get the picture. Pitt hasn’t won a lot of non-conference road games lately, and especially to those against power-five opponents. Tennessee is from the SEC, so the opportunity is there on Saturday to reverse this trend.
ONE PREDICTION
I think we see more on offense
Pat Narduzzi joked before and after Saturday’s game with UMass about what flavor the offense would be. I think he settled on butter pecan before the game. I’ve never had butter pecan ice cream, so I’ll take his word for it if that is what we witnessed when his team took on the Minutemen.
Kidding aside, Pitt has actually had some season opener’s where the team sort of comes out and does just enough to win, with a ‘vanilla’ game plan then by week two, it’s a complete different offense.
I think that was none more evident in 2016 when the team sluggishly beat Villanova in week one, then dropped 42 points on Penn State a week later with all kinds of jet sweeps and shovel passes thrown in the mix. Now I’m not saying Mark Whipple is going to come out and run Matt Canada’s offense, but I am under the belief there are probably some more schemes and concepts they will run on Saturday that simply just weren’t used against UMass.
With all due respect, Pitt pretty much played things straight away and still scored 51 points against UMass. Of the 130 FBS teams, the Minutemen are certainly towards the bottom, it is what it is. Pitt didn’t need to do too much to win convincingly, and that’s how it played out last week.
I also believe that goes for the personnel, and not just play calling. As I noted above, I think we’ll see Abanikanda for more than seven carries on Saturday. I suspect Jordan Addison will have his number called a bit more also. Lucas Krull will be a featured option as a tight end.
Will Pitt win on Saturday? Will the offense exploded for 40 points?
I’m not sure if I’m ready to make either prediction just yet. My prediction, however, is that we’re going to see more of the offense that wasn’t there last week. We’re going to see the running backs used probably in the correct order. I think Pitt more or less, left a lot of things hidden away for scouting purposes, and in fairness Tennessee probably did too, but we’ll see both teams open up their respective offenses on Saturday.